Through the eyes of a snake
by Ginjaa Ninjaa
Summary: Naruto is well known for being a Toad summoner. What if though, Naruto Uzumaki became a member of their most hated enemy's clan. Taught by Manda, Naruto does his best to earn the position of Hokage with his brain as well as brawn. Nobody foresaw the changes that this would bring to the elemental nations, not even Naruto himself. Massively edited for a better reading experience.
1. Now that she's

**While this is definitely not anywhere near close to canon, there are some things that happened before the point where my story starts which will not be added to my story, with that being that Naruto never met Konohamaru and never became friends with him.**

Becoming a genin shinobi was a real eye opener for our favourite blonde haired boy. It was as if he had aged mentally from the 8 year old he was mentally to that now of a 12 year old which he was physically.

Now with the knowledge on why the village hated him it answered a lot of questions and yet, it opened up even more. The most prominent one inside the mind of the Kyubi's jinchuuriki was why was it him? Why did the Yondaime Hokage choose him to be the jailor of the Kyubi?

This was just another one of the questions that Naruto had about his life that went unanswered. The sad thing was that this was one of the only constants in his life. The blue eyed boy mused that this was the theme of his life. Always wanting information and never being able to get it. Whether it was by the teachers at the academy giving him either ripped up or fake text books, or how the village's librarians would always bar him access into their establishments. This was done as the fear of having a smart "demon" was something that they did not want to have. The Kyubi attack was still prevalent in the minds of the older people living inside Konoha.

One of the other reasons Naruto was denied information was because of him being the Kyubi jinchuuriki. The academy did not that Naruto the right to having access to be able to learn. This was a right that every child should have and it brought up a whole lot of ethical questions for Konoha to answer.

With Naruto being an orphan who had nothing to do because he had no friends or any family to play with, the boy tried to just get attention and from anywhere he could. This eventually formed into pranks and petty attempts to gain the acknowledgement that he existed. It didn't matter if it wasn't exactly laughter like it was sometimes, to the psychologically impaired Naruto, it was something that was worth its weight in gold.

At the time and still to this day, Naruto, being someone who had no parents to guide him through childhood, didn't understand the difference between good attention and bad attention. Unfortunately for the blonde haired boy, this was not the only thing that he had no recognition of. One of the many other things was how to have a healthy diet.

With Naruto being the hyper active kid he was, thanks to the fact that he had the Kyubi no Kitsune inside of him, he was forced to eat incredible amounts of food. This was only just to absorb a large amount of carbs, fats and sugars just to keep him going each and every day. If someone looked closely at the physical state that the blonde haired boy was in though, they would know that he was not eating enough food thanks to his ribs being on show.

This was also why he was shorter than what a boy his age should be. It was because of this severe case of malnutrition that only Naruto was able to survive from the scurvy and rickets. It was one reason that Naruto was unintentionally thankful for having the Kyubi inside of him. Had it not been for the great healing power that the Youkai of the Kyubi provided, well then the son of Minato Namikaze and Kushina Uzumaki would have been dead at the age of 5

With Naruto having to take more missions, he got to see that there were missions that were much better than the D-ranked missions he was doing with his team. This revelation meant that his sensei Kakashi, who hadn't really taught him anything yet, was purposely choosing the worst missions he could find just so that he could watch team 7 struggle.

To Naruto this was just not acceptable. Here he was struggling to live off of the small amount of money that he earned. This was compounding onto his bad mood because of the shitty missions that his team was going on. Was it too wrong for him to ask for some light at the end of the tunnel of darkness?

Said missions were something of an eye opener for Naruto as well. For Naruto, being someone who craved attention and acknowledgement from people because of his upbringing, it was hard for him.

Next Morning

Waking up, Naruto found himself in for a shock of a lifetime. There, in front of him was a rattlesnake. The only reason Naruto knew what type of snake because of the noise that its tail was making. Naruto could thank his academy sensei Iruka for teaching him that.

Once Naruto took the time to rub the sleep dust out of his eyes and take a good look at the snake. The boy noticed that this wasn't a regular rattle snake. Oh no… the rattlesnake that was on the end of his bed, on top of his legs in fact; this rattlesnake was much larger than a normal version of what the average version of the snake would be.

No, this was no mere rattle snake. In Naruto's eyes, this was a legitimate predator of the animal kingdom with there being anything barely able to take it on and live to tell the tale. One thing that the blue eyed boy was certain of was the fact that right there, in front of him was something that he was readily able to admit to fearing. With its whole body curled up, it gave off the impression that it was sleeping. Naruto however knew that it was far from that, in fact it was the complete opposite. It was no doubt ready to pounce on its prey and inject its poisoned fangs into its dinner. Unfortunately for the Kyubi jinchuuriki, he was the prime pick on the menu. Talk about luck! Just when he thought that things couldn't get any worse, they somehow always managed to do so.

Now finally fully awake thanks to all of the adrenaline coursing through his body, Naruto realised that uncoiled this snake it would be 10 metres long and was 45 centimetres wide. If anyone from his graduating class ever found out that a little wee came out, then the very minor social ranking that he had would have been instantly shattered.

To counteract the fact that snakes had very weak eyesight, Shakudo opened her mouth and used her sensory glands on her tongue. It was to no surprise that she could smell the radiating fear that was coming off of Naruto. It was coming in large amounts, though she did not expect to smell the small stench of urine coming off of the blonde haired boy. Amused by the fact that she could make children pee themselves, a smirk graced her smooth face as she was proud that she could get that amount of fear out of her prey.

Deciding that she should nip it in the bud and get onto why she was here, Shakudo spoke in a tone that told Naruto that this snake was a female snake. "You are Naruto Uzumaki, correct?" the purple rattlesnake hissed although not in a tone that spelled danger for Naruto. This though she already knew; Shakudo's father had specifically told her to seek the Kyubi jinchuuriki out. He was the one who had been brimming with traits that would make a great snake summoner, she just wanted to see what type of person he was.

Naruto, not being one who was good with his manners spoke his mind when it to came whatever he was feeling. That was why he pointed one of his arms at the snake with a shocked expression on his face as he replied to the rattlesnake. "Holy shit, a talking snake!" Naruto shouted as he looked down at the snake that still had not gotten rid of the proud smirk that was on her face.

Sighing because, from what her father's informants had gathered, that this kid was someone who did not have any manners at. Admittedly, when she first heard the report into how the possible future snake summoner was like personality wise; she laughed it off and thought that he couldn't be that bad. It was too bad for the purple rattlesnake that she over estimated Naruto.

Calming down the emotions of anger, although they were directed at herself for foolishly believing that Naruto would at least have some manners; Shakudo responded to Naruto's statement. "Yes, now are you or are you not Naruto Uzumaki?" Shakudo asked as there was a hiss to each of her words.

Naruto, somewhat forgetting just who exactly he was talking to, spoke in his usual tone. Now normally, Naruto would be a little more pleasant when speaking to people in the hopes of making some friends, but after what happened yesterday, well let's just say that he wasn't in a good mood and talking wasn't something that was going to help it improve.

"Yeah, what's it to you huh?" the blonde haired jinchuuriki said in a grouchy tone that implied that he did not want to be spoken to, which was true; he indeed did not want to speak with anyone today, not even his female teammate Sakura Haruno who he had a major crush on.

Even though she did catch the tone in which Naruto spoke to her, it did not matter to her because she had a mission. Shakudo had been sent by her father, Manda, the king of all serpents. That meant that she would complete it, no matter how crappy of a mission it was.

Not bothering to answer Naruto's question, Shakudo replied by answering with a statement of her own. "Now Naruto-kun" seeing the slight twitch in his left eyebrow told her that it was something that she shouldn't be saying. Too bad for Naruto though, she knew that she could win any battle that the two had and win quite comfortably. This meant that she would be able to get away with using it.

Continuing on from the slight pause as she gazed on at Naruto's response to her question, Shakudo spoke up. "Now Naruto-kun" Shakudo purposefully said just to see the eyebrow of Naruto twitch before getting down to business. "We have been watching you for a while now, Naruto-kun." Shakudo said as she wanted to see the expression on the face of Naruto.

Indeed she got a reaction out of the blonde haired boy as she watched the confused expression form on Naruto's face before it settled into an angry sneer. "Why are you spying on me? Huh, what've I ever done to make someone, let alone a giant talking snake to spy on me?" Naruto wasn't sure whether or not to be flattered that it meant someone had a vested interest in him or worried because it meant that someone might want to have him kick the dust.

Slithering closer to Naruto, now so she was on his lap instead of where his feet were, the purple rattle snaked spoke in a calm and collected tone that she thought was good enough to reassure Naruto. It wasn't enough to reassure him that she wasn't going to kill him; it was just that it made him know that she wasn't going to kill him…yet. "We have been watching you for a while because you have shown some traits as a human that make you worthy to become a member of the snake clan." Shakudo said to which made Naruto exceedingly curious.

Confused beyond all belief, Naruto asked the rattlesnake on his lap as to what traits he had shown. "Whad'ya mean I've shown traits that you find would make me a good member of the snake clan?" Naruto demanded to Shakudo. There was a simple reason as to why Naruto wanted his question answered.

It was to do with the fact that ever since Naruto knew what the word orphan meant, he asked the Sandaime Hokage and how it related to him. Said man subsequently told him that both of his parents were dead and that he wasn't a part of a clan (little did Naruto know that the Sandaime had been lying.) This made Naruto want to have a family badly.

When someone says that you are showing signs that may make them invite you into their clan, it was something that Naruto was going to take full advantage of.

Shakudo was angry. She was angry because someone who had high stature like her was getting spoken to as if she was some peasant commoner. She was the god damn princess of the snake clan, if anything; it should be her looking down on Naruto, Not the other way round!

"You have shown that you are smart with your pranks albeit in an unconventional way. These pranks have shown that you are smart in planning your attack against whatever it is you are preying on Naruto-kun." Shakudo said to which was taken back a little bit and blushed bashfully.

The main reason as to why Naruto was blushing was because everyone, and he meant EVERYONE, including all of the people that he looked up to, had said that his pranks were bad. They had said that his pranks were juvenile and had no benefit whatsoever on his dream of becoming the Hokage of Konoha. When the talking snake said that it was one of his good traits, the blonde haired boy was proud to hear that his pranking had some benefits.

Allowing Naruto the time to digest the compliments because she knew, from what her father had told her, she knew that he would treasure them for all that they were worth. Shakudo also knew that it was morally wrong to prey on those feelings of an orphaned child, but well she was opportunistic. There was a moment which she could manipulate Naruto into a win-win situation for the both of them. What was so bad about that when you were trying to help the person that you were manipulating?

"You have shown admirable amounts of cunning and trickery when you fool your capturers. The fact that you had such limited knowledge and training on how to be good at stealth is quite remarkable." As Shakudo finished, she was once again greeted with the sight of Naruto blushing. The blonde haired boy found the compliment an uncommon but welcoming feeling.

Taking her time, the purple rattlesnake allowed for the compliment to sink into Naruto before she gave him more compliments. This was to butter him up into becoming a member of the snake clan and to become a ninja worthy of the clan's large amounts of honour and pride. "You are shrewd in the way that you use your currency. That shows that you are smart and that you know how to manage your money so that you can live off as best you can. Hardly any other children around your age in the whole world learn how to do that at your age. Too many children take what their parents provide for granted." The rattlesnake said to which Naruto returned the gesture with a smile as thanks of her praise.

Though it wasn't a compliment that made Naruto blush, it was still one that made him happy because he had never received this kind of treatment as a human before.

"When you learned the Ninpou: Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Ninja arts: Shadow Clone Jutsu) in under three hours, it showed that not only are you able to learn fast if you put your mind to it, but it also showed that you have the determination to be the best shinobi that you could possibly be." The serpentine creature stated to Naruto who looked proud because he knew that he had the biggest determination compared to all of his other classmates. It was he who would keep going until he dropped unlike all of the others. The only slight exception was Sasuke as long as he had the right ammunition to fuel his training.

Knowing that it was best to get some traits ingrained into Naruto early before anyone else could try and sink their fangs into the boy, Shakudo spoke up.

"All members of the snake clan don't have to be good right away though it does help a bit. It's just that you must be determined to reach your full potential." Shakudo said in a tone which left no argument on Naruto's behalf.

That was something that was fine by him because he knew that he wasn't the best of shinobi. This despite what the large majority of civilians would think, going by first hand experiences of his personality. This was something that his records at the academy readily agreed with but he was determined to become the best shinobi. It was needed because to be the Kage of a hidden village, you needed to be really strong.

"The biggest trait though that you have shown to us is that you want to be Hokage. It's a position that must be filled only by a person who is not only insanely strong, but you also have to be wise and knowledgeable. You will have to decide which people are best suited to going on what mission." Shakudo said to Naruto.

Naruto promptly let a few tears down his face because he had never, NEVER had anyone say such kind things to him before. Sure the Hokage told him that he could become the Hokage if he set his mind to it, as well as the encouragement coming from Teuchi and Ayame, but he had never had praise and compliments laid on him so thick before. For the blue eyed boy it was truly overwhelming. Seeing that it was a little bit too much for Naruto to handle, she knew that Naruto needed a shoulder to cry on and it was something that she was going to provide.

Slithering up to Naruto, Shakudo uncoiled herself and wrapped her warm body around the small frame of Naruto Uzumaki. It wasn't done though as if it was done in something that her father would do to his prey. No, this was the way that a mother snake would do to comfort her.

Once it took Naruto about 5 minutes to get his crying under control, he felt the cool feeling that Shakudo's skin provided and he wondered why the snake was doing this for him. Before anything could happen though, the purple rattlesnake was already leaving him and heading towards the window.

"Now I must bid you good well Naruto-kun. I have to go back to my father and report that I have sorted you out and told you that you will be able to join the snake clan provided that you improve yourself as a person to be someone who won't tarnish the name of our clan." said purple rattlesnake said before she started heading towards the window as she wanted to get some dinner before leaving.

In his haste to keep the company of the snake inside the room, Naruto asked one final question that would give him a lot to think about. And that question was "Wait a second! Can you tell me how I can improve my chances on becoming a member of the clan? And when you will tell me whether or not if I've made it into the clan?" Naruto desperately said because he had decided in that moment that he wanted to be a part of the clan. The way that Shakudo had reassured Naruto in that he could become the Hokage was something that the boy was incredibly grateful for.

It seemed pointless of her to go and tarnish her previous effort, but if it gave Naruto a fighting chance of gaining acceptance, then she would merit him with the information that he desired. After all, she had helped bring his spirits up, so why not go the whole distance?

Knowing that the right wording was paramount to swaying things into your favour, Shakudo started speaking as she worded what came out of her mouth carefully. This was something that was taught to her by her father, Manda, the king of all serpents.

"Well Naruto-kun, before I start, get a pen and a piece of paper in case you forget what you are trying to learn. You can go back and revise your notes instead of stagnating in your development both as a person as well as a shinobi." Shakudo said to which Naruto pulled off the blankets and got up and went over to the chest of draws and pulled out a pen and a piece of paper. The Kyubi jinchuuriki was eagerly awaited to hear what he had to write down.

"Alright, the first thing that you need to work on is your patience. You are far too hot headed which is bad for not only being a ninja and but also as a person. It is also bad as a Hokage because they need to make the right decision every time. The consequences of making the wrong decision will be fatal. Make no mistake, the lives of all of Konoha's residency rest on your shoulders if you become Hokage." The purple snake said to Naruto.

Gulping at the seriousness in what he had just heard, Naruto nodded and quickly wrote down that he needed to have patience. The reason why the serpentine creature felt this way was because she viewed being the Hokage similar to being the leader of an entire clan of summons. It was the position her father held and she would inherit as time passed on. If there was only one thing that her father could have taught her, it was that snakes always, ALWAYS look after their own.

"Another thing that you need to work on is your manners. At this current stage, they are atrocious. We will definitely not be having the human that represents our clan to be someone who is ill mannered. This is because it not only reflects poorly on that person, but it also reflects badly on the clan as a whole." The reptile said with a distinct accent which was comprised of hisses.

Naruto being an orphan did not have a good concept of humiliation. He didn't care if he embarrassed himself; it was not as if someone would care. Now though, since he could potentially join this clan, his actions would be reflected on the other members of the clan. Naruto made a decision right there and then to improve on his manners. The chance of having a family albeit a unique family was an opportunity that was far too good to pass up in the eyes of Naruto.

"The next thing is your choice of attire. To me it shows that you are an immature little kid, a little kid who doesn't care about his shinobi career. It also shows that you would rather have attention instead of completing a mission that needed the upmost stealth." Hearing it straight from the snake's mouth about how poor and immature his choice in clothing was made Naruto flinch. He had gone through so much trial and tribulation to be called an adult in the eyes of a ninja. It was a definite hit to his pride when someone called him an immature child.

"You do not need to completely change your clothing style. I know how much you like the colour orange." Shakudo said as she looked dryly at the choice of clothes that Naruto had chosen to wear.

"What you do need to change however is so that you have a style that suits being a ninja, not a civilian. That is not the right way to be going about gaining respect from others. The best ways to get attention and respect is through behaving in a proper conduct and being a strong shinobi." Shakudo said to which the kyuubi's jinchuuriki rapidly nodded as he now knew that people respected Sasuke more than him. Sasuke, in their eyes was a better shinobi and carried himself with more dignity.

"The final major thing that you need to have which you don't have is knowledge. You need this because it is one of, if not the most important thing for a shinobi to have and yet it is the area that I find you lacking the most. You are smart when it comes to using your ingenuity with the things that you already know. However… your general knowledge and your knowledge of things that a Hokage needs to know is very poor. It's something that needs to be addressed immediately." Now normally Shakudo would not look at Naruto because she knew that he would be busy writing down on the paper. When her very precise and sharp hearing detected that there was no sound of the metal tip connecting down onto the paper she turned around curiously. It was then that the purple rattlesnake felt a bit of guilt and remorse for what she had just said. She could guess what was going through the mind of the Kyubi jinchuuriki.

Trying to make amends for what she had just said, Shakudo spoke up. "Now Naruto, I know that you might have trouble getting access to the information but I know a good way for you to do that. Just use your Ninpou: Henge no Jutsu (Ninja Arts: Transformation Jutsu) and change into someone else and enter that way." Shakudo said as she tried to get Naruto's spirits back onto the positive side.

Immediately the reptilian creature saw the response that she desired. Shakudo knew it was a smile that in the future would melt the hearts of almost any woman.

It was then though that the snake saw something that she didn't expect to see. On the face of Naruto, there was a scowl as he did not like having to hide his identity. "But I'm not ashamed of my appearance! Why do I have to look like someone else?" Naruto stated, a frown marring his face.

Shakudo was annoyed at the reaction that Naruto gave to her problem solver. This was because if she did anything like that to her father, well her body would be littered with scars. That was simply something that she wasn't worth risking in her mind.

Angry enough that she started rattling her tail and producing a considerable killing intent, Shakudo got her point across to Naruto. The Uzumaki genin was scared beyond all hell wondering what it was that he did to annoy her.

"Do you know how much of a petulant spoilt child you sound like right now!? I give you a solution to your problem and what is it you do in return to thank me? You spit in my face and whine about your appearance! Do you know how much of a spoilt brat you sound like? You are supposed to be a ninja; a ninja is someone who does whatever it takes to get the job done. It seems to me that you don't want to be a ninja because you are doing the exact opposite." Shakudo angrily said to Naruto whose only response was to hang his head in shame.

Realising that she might have been a bit tough on Naruto because of her own childhood, she decided to take it down a notch and try and bring his hopes up again.

"Look Naruto-kun" the female serpent said as she slithered along the ground to Naruto and wrapped her tail around his hand and squeezed it so that she could get his attention. "You are a ninja; you are supposed to be someone who does what is necessary to complete the mission. Just think of it as a mission and that you are infiltrating a foreign ninja stronghold. Your objective is to get as much enemy information as possible." Shakudo said despite the fact that it was a low blow on her behalf. Naruto secretly liked to play games that were meant for kids younger than he was. This was due to the fact that the blonde haired boy did not have the chance to do them when he was younger. He wanted to have the same amount of fun that other kids around him seemed to be having.

Naruto grinned at that, although Shakudo knew that there was some sense of falseness in Naruto's grin, it was enough to get her to smile back at him which gave her the real smile that she had been after.

Looking at the notes that Naruto had managed to conjure up, Shakudo saw something else there that needed to be fixed. That was his handwriting. It was absolutely atrocious in her mind. It was nowhere near the level that the snake clan demanded. Hell it was barely legible enough that she could even read it. "Now Naruto, another thing that you need to work on is your handwriting. We of the snake clan have very high standards for our respective human counterparts. One of the things that we demand is that you have near flawless cursive hand writing."

Nodding at that, Naruto wrote down as best as he could in cursive which he only barely learnt at the academy. There was no doubt that it was a failed attempt because Naruto was behind on normal writing let alone cursive writing.

"Thank you…snake-san, I really appreciate what you have just done for me today. You have given me a lot to think about." Naruto graciously said to the snake who just nodded in its own fashion and headed for the window. Before it could get there, Naruto spoke up once more.

"Excuse me" Naruto said as he tried to practice using manners for the first time in a long time. The last time he had done that was when he wanted to gain access to the library. "You never told me your what you name was. Can you please give me something better to call you rather than just snake-san?" Naruto asked as politely as he could without any real training in the art.

Impressed by the tone of voice and also the words that Naruto used when he spoke to her, Shakudo decided that Naruto deserved at least know her name. "My name is Shakudo, you may call me Shakudo-sama." The serpentine creature said to which Naruto nodded and also wrote down on the piece of paper so he didn't forget.

_Shakudo-sama _Naruto read to himself as he finished writing the female snake's name down on the piece of paper.

Deciding that Naruto, being a person who had so little in his childhood deserved to have some help. Shakudo decided that she might as well give the boy one last hint on the path of becoming a better person and ninja. It would only constitute into anything if Naruto figured it out himself so she decided that it was okay to part some of her knowledge onto the blonde haired boy. Trying to think of the right thing to say and yet would also give Naruto something to think about was quite hard. In the end though, the purple rattlesnake spoke up once she had made up her mind.

"Naruto, there is one last piece of advice that I will give you before I go." To which Naruto stared at her purple scales and the yellow eyes which had a slit down the centre of them as he waited for the advice.

"You still have yet to learn all you can about the Ninpou: Kage Bunshin no Jutsu. (Ninja Arts: Shadow Clone Jutsu.)" The purple reptilian cryptically said before she slithered down the other side of the open window thanks to her skills in chakra control.

"Wait a minute… she never told me what time they would be coming to tell me whether or not I can become a part of their clan. Oh well, I guess that I just have to be ready for whenever they come." Naruto mused to himself. It wasn't long before he got up and placed the Ninpou: henge no Jutsu (Ninja Arts: Transformation Jutsu) and headed towards the library. Luckily for Naruto, the genin remembered the piece of paper just as he was about to lock the door to his apartment. After heading back inside, Naruto got the paper and left with a newfound determination.

Time skip

One month had passed since Naruto had gotten a visit from the princess of the snake clan. Looking back at where he was at as a person a month ago compared to where he was now, the blonde haired boy had made himself very proud. Proud as he saw just how far he had come from an immature brat to what he personally considered an adult. Now not only by the law, but also by the way that he acted.

When the moment of truth came for Naruto, he could easily admit to being scared. The doubt was heavily casted on his subconscious as to what if his disguise failed him and the librarians found out who he was? That feeling though of anxiety was heavily outweighed by the fact that he now had unrestricted access to all of the information inside the library. The reward was just too great for the risk of failing to not be attempted.

In fact, the Konoha general shinobi and civilian library was the biggest storage of books and novels for people of all backgrounds, ages and skill levels to read in the whole entire shinobi elemental continent. This was a record that was proudly boasted by the people who ran the establishment and it was something that Naruto fully intended to capitalise on.

What Naruto didn't realise until he spent the first full day inside the library was the fact that there was such a thing called chakra exhaustion. Now with Naruto being someone was inside the library holding a henge over his whole body for the best part of roughly 12 hours, it made someone even like Naruto run out.

One thing that Naruto unintentionally got better at whilst he had to look like someone else was his chakra control. Naruto was getting better the more time he spent holding onto the jutsu. It was a great improvement for Naruto considering the fact that he wasn't even actively trying to improve his chakra control. It might have been only a minor upgrade but it was still something. The interesting thing was that Naruto didn't even know he was doing it.

One of the things that Naruto felt he was getting better at was his general knowledge. The not completely stupid person that was Naruto one month ago had changed quite a lot. The amount of improvement that had been made by the genin was quite remarkable!

The transformation that Naruto underwent was not because he had some sort of brain that the second he read the text, it went into his brain forever to remain there and at the drop of the hat, he could pull that information out and use in an argument.

Arguably though, the greatest change in the blonde haired boy over the past month was not his intelligence, it was actually his patience and manners when, not only talking to people but also when he was eating. Now he would not just rush into the food that he was eating straight away like he used to.

No, now Naruto would patiently eat the food that he was ingesting into his mouth. This meant that the food that Naruto was now able to taste the food that he was eating.

When Naruto did this he came to a realisation. It wasn't as if that the ramen that Teuchi and Ayame Ichiraku, the people who had fed him the good part of his whole entire life made bad food… It was just the fact that the food was nowhere near as good as the Naruto of old made it sound like it did. Sure it was a good, quick food that got you full relatively cheaply because of the high amount of sugars and carbohydrates, but it wasn't that great of a meal.

Sure Naruto was truly grateful in a way that he knew that he wouldn't ever be able to repay because of the kindness that they gave him but when Naruto first went to the bistro for the first time after his conversation he had had with Shakudo, it was an eye opener for Ayame. Though she did not comment on it at the time, she did raise an eyebrow and directed it at Naruto who was blissfully unaware of the gesture as he was too busy focusing on eating in a way that would impress the snake clan.

When the next few visits of Naruto however kept up in this new way of eating and talking as politely as he could, it was too big of a shock for Ayame to ignore.

Flash back

_She couldn't take it, Ayame had been watching how the person who ate the most ramen in the village and it was killing her curiosity about how Naruto could change so much in such a short amount of time._

_Normally, Naruto wouldn't bother about how he ate because it was not as if it would reflect badly on anyone. Now though, it looked like Naruto had changed the ways he ate specifically for the sole purpose of impressing someone. It made Ayame think that Naruto had actually gotten serious about trying to go out with that pink haired teammate of his._

_Though it was now high time that she started questioning Naruto about why he was trying so hard to impress the pink haired girl. "Now Naruto, why is it that you are trying so hard to impress that pink haired girl who is your teammate? Are you practising for a date if she says yes?" the ramen bistro waitress / chef asked with a curious frown on her face._

_Clueless to what was going on in the mind of the teenage girl, Naruto replied in a polite manner. "No, Ayame, I just got some advice from someone that to even have a chance at becoming the Hokage, you need to be polite and be well mannered for all of the meetings and events that you have to go to." Naruto said ending the statement with a small smile on his face._

_And that was that, Ayame had had her curiosity satisfied and went back to taking the orders of other regular customers who were both curious and wary as to why Naruto showing much more respect, patience and ._

End flash back

The thing though that improved the most when it came to Naruto and his development as a human being was his skill at reading and writing. Before Naruto had the meeting with the snake clan heiress, his skills in both arts were terrible to say the least.

The scribble that Naruto use to call his hand writing was so bad that it was as good as what a kid who was just starting out learning how to write. The same could be also said for his skills when it came to reading as Naruto had always had trouble following what was being taught at the academy. He fell behind at the start and it was simply too big of a gap for him to recover without putting in the time and effort.

It got to the point that Naruto had just given up thinking that he would ever be able to read and write, some of life's essential things to a level that would be average in the eyes of society.

This all changed as Naruto learnt the secret to the Ninpou: Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Ninja Arts: Shadow Clone Jutsu.) It was a little surprising that Naruto got the hint that Shakudo had left, in fact she thought that it wouldn't be something that he would get at all until she told him about it at a later date.

It all came about when Naruto sent of one of the clones to go to one of the other shelves that made up the library to go and get the next book in the beginner set of reading and writing.

It came back with the knowledge of not only the title, but also the contents page as the clone got curious himself. After Naruto got over the shock of the clone dispersing, he started thinking about if this was what Shakudo-sama was on about when she said there were still things that he didn't know about the jutsu.

Using his favourite method of learning; trial and error, Naruto started experimenting with what a clone could learn. The reasoning behind this was because he wanted to be exactly what the snake clan wanted in terms of a new human to represent them. Unfortunately for Naruto, he never had an arrival time for the offer. This meant that the son of the fourth Hokage had to be ready at any and every possible time.

When Naruto found out that his clones could actually learn things and practise the movements which would make his handwriting improve in leaps and bounds, he was delighted. In fact, comparing to a lot of the other books that Naruto had read, his skill in writing was now up to the level of what an author would use for a book. The thing that made it even better and made him look like he was a part of the upper society of Konoha was the fact that it was in cursive writing which was nothing to sneeze.

While there were a few people who liked the new Naruto most specifically Iruka and the Ichiraku family because it made him look like he was getting more mature which in a way he was.

There were also just as many people who did not like the new Naruto, the two people who were the chief believers of this were none other than his two teammates Sakura and Sasuke. Naruto would have thought that they would have been the two people that would have supported him the most in him becoming more mature, but sadly not everything goes the way for the blonde haired boy.

How wrong was he though? Sasuke, who Naruto had had multiple encounters with previously thought that Naruto was trying to copy him. The prime reason as to why Sasuke thought this was because it was no secret that Naruto had a major crush on his biggest fan girl Sakura Haruno. The mind of the Uchiha clan heir had twisted Naruto becoming more mature into Naruto trying to steal away his biggest fan girl.

It was like that of a spoilt kid who had a toy who didn't play with it but when some other kid, someone who wasn't as fortunate in his upbringing comes to try and have that toy for themselves, well it made the petty jealously come out to the forefront in Sasuke Uchiha.

On the other side of the coin, one Sakura Haruno thought that this was Naruto's newest attempt for trying to win her over so that she would become his girlfriend instead of Sasuke-kun's future wife. This was something that you just don't do to a teenage female girl. The end result wasn't what Naruto had expected though.

That was not what happened at all. In fact, it was the total opposite. Sakura had started going on about how that Naruto was never going to amount into anything that would date worthy material ever, no matter how much he changed as a person.

More importantly though, she had started to go on about how he should stop trying to be polite, and more importantly calm and collected liker her Sasuke-kun. This did have the effect that Sakura had wanted. She definitely got Naruto to stop attempting to go out with her.

Naruto had immediately, now with a brain worth mentioning, thought about all of the qualities that Sakura had which would go well with the snake clan because if he was going to be with them, well then he wouldn't want whoever his girlfriend was to embarrass the clan by being a proxy with him.

It was then that he came to a shocking conclusion. Sakura was not someone that they would allow him to date because they thought that she did not hold herself with proper conduct of a kunoichi in training.

In their eyes, she should have been training to become a good ninja and from the limited time that Naruto actually spent with her as her teammate, he knew that it she did not train one bit.

This was along with the fact that she fessed over her looks to a point that it was pitiful for a shinobi. Sure shinobi are supposed to look good, but that was only when they have to go to an event or dinner as Hokage and his wife or some other prominent person in Konoha's eyes. Naruto now held no reservations to the fact that he was going to become the Hokage of Konoha thanks to the reassurances. All he had to do was put the effort into becoming someone deserving of the title.

The thing that made Naruto realise that Sakura was not the girl for the person who he was trying to become though was that that she had a bad temper which was something that Naruto knew that the snake clan would not like. She got angry far too easily when you pushed the right buttons which were not that hard to find.

In contrast to his teammates hating the new Naruto, there were people who were sitting on the fence concerning Naruto's recent change in personality. Those two people being Naruto's sensei and the person who he wanted to take the job off.

Both Kakashi Hatake and Hiruzen Sarutobi were curious and somewhat apprehensive as to what brought on Naruto's sudden change in his personality. At first they thought that it was good for Naruto as he needed to become a bit more mature.

Then as time went on and they noticed that Naruto was showing less and less signs that indicated that he had undergone a change recently and they thought that there was something that took Naruto's innocence away from him.

If there was anyone in the entirety of Konoha who could have had a motive to leave the village, it was none other than Naruto Uzumaki. He had been delt a severely harsh childhood which only got worse thanks to the population of Konoha. The future of the village hidden in the leaves rested on a single boy's shoulders more than he knew and Hiruzen and Kakashi would do everything to make it so Konoha prospered.


	2. Back in the atmosphere

Naruto was trying his hardest to rein in his hyperactivity. Unfortunately, the blonde haired boy was not adept enough in being able to prevent it coming to the surface. That was why Naruto had occasional bursts where he would act like the old Naruto.

It was not as if to say that Naruto was the only one who had a reaction to the news though. Sakura looked as if she was about to shit her pants. She was just that nervous about completing what was in her eyes and the eyes of everyone else, her first real mission.

Along with Naruto and Sakura both having reactions, the raven haired teammate of the two shrugged non committedly to keep up appearances. If one looked hard enough though, they would be able to see a small, immobile smirk on the face of Sasuke Uchiha.

"YEAH!" Naruto shouted as he raised his fist in the air as he jumped to show the full scope of his emotions. This was before he realised what he was trying to reign in.

Blushing, Naruto receded a little bit into his orange jacket to hopefully stop the people around him from staring at him. Amused by the response to the mission that Naruto gave, Hiruzen Sarutobi got them all to give their full attention to him. This was so that he could tell them what their mission consisted of.

"Now I must say congratulations are in order, this is your first mission apart from the standard D-ranked missions that all teams have to do." Hiruzen said as he wanted to see the expression on the face of team 7.

While it was good and all to see the smiles on the faces of Sakura and Sasuke, it was a bit of a worry to the Sandaime Hokage that the jinchuuriki of the Kyubi could be so happy at the prospect of leaving the village. He could only hope that this didn't mean anything bad. As long as Naruto still had the dream to become the Hokage, then all was well and good.

Knowing what was to come next, Kakashi didn't stop the Sandaime from bending the truth a little bit. "In fact, both Kakashi and I are very impressed with the way that your team has handled your missions so far. We have decided that we will allow you to skip C-ranked missions and give your team a B-ranked mission instead." The Hokage said with a smile on his face.

The reactions that the Hokage was expecting coming from team Kakashi were exactly what he got. The pink haired girl was even more nervous than what she was before when he told them that they were going on their first real mission.

The future sharingan wielder though, he was the complete opposite of the person who had the biggest crush on him. His confidence in his abilities was up at a record high thanks to him becoming the rookie of the year.

Looking at Naruto, both Kakashi and Hiruzen were impressed that the expressions that Naruto was showing on his face which were down the middle. There was nervousness, confidence and the willingness to go on the mission. He was showing quite a lot of nerves though. Naruto tried his best to hide them behind the small polite smile that was becoming more and more natural as time passed. Eventually that smile would be better known to those around Naruto than what his big foxy grin was. In the eyes of Hiruzen, it was somewhat sad to see Naruto grow up so quick. He would have hoped that that youthful exuberance stayed around a bit longer.

"For your mission, you are to go to the hidden village in the grass or as it is more commonly known, Kusagakure. The reason as to why you are going there is because your sensei, Kakashi is fairly well known to the world. He is going to be conducting political talks with them. This is in the hopes of bargaining a new trade agreement for their poisons in return for some of our crops." Hiruzen said to the four members that made up Team Seven.

This news gave Sakura a little bit more certainty in the fact that she was going to live past their first real mission. From what she had just heard, it sounded like one where it didn't require her rather limited skillset.

Sasuke was a little miffed about the fact that his chance to test himself against worthy ninjas. When he first heard that he would be going on a B-ranked mission, he thought that he was going to be up against actual ninjas. From what he had heard just then, it sounded more like a mission ranked on importance alone rather than difficulty. There was a little part inside of him that was relieved although he didn't know it.

Much like Sasuke wanted to go up against strong ninjas to prove himself worthy, Naruto also wanted to test himself. This was for two reasons. The first reason being that he wanted to prove to the snake clan that he was worthy of joining them. The second reason being that Naruto wanted to prove to all of the people back in Konoha who either despised or doubted him wrong. He wanted to see their smug smile drop right from there face.

On the other hand, Naruto also was sharing feelings similar to his pink haired teammate. Like Sakura, there was a part of him that doubted whether or not he had what was needed to complete the mission. The blonde haired boy suffered from a severe case of projecting false confidence with a serious case of self-doubt. Naruto knew that he had improved drastically in the last month. The question was though, would it be enough?

Knowing that he was on a tight schedule, the Sandaime knew that he had to get the team in front of him out. This was so that he could give a mission to another team. It was the way that a leader had to be. Hiruzen started speaking moments after. "Now, I am all sure that you have a mission to go pack for. You better be prepared for anything." Hiruzen said to not only Sakura, Sasuke and Naruto but also Kakashi as he wanted him to get the hidden message.

Knowing when he was being given the message to dismiss himself, Kakashi nodded to the leader of the hidden leaf village. Kakashi then proceeded to make his way over to the door and told his students to do the same thing.

Once they were outside and out of the way of the current Hokage, Kakashi started to explain to his students what their mission consisted of. "Now while this mission is ranked as a B-ranked mission, you don't need to hyperventilate as much Sakura. This mission is ranked as such for importance rather than danger." Kakashi said to all of his students. At this point they all nodded as they wanted to know what was going to be said next.

Normally, the former ANBU captain wouldn't be as assertive when it came to a simple B-ranked mission. Well it was simple enough for the high A-ranked, borderline S-ranked ninja. Since it was something that would have a big effect on the economy Kakashi was thankful that the trade agreement had already been agreed upon by the Hokage. All he had to do was some formalities and sign off on it.

"That being said, I still wouldn't rule out some sort of attack so I want you to be prepared for anything. Even if it doesn't happen, it can't hurt to be prepared" Kakashi said to which both Naruto and Sasuke nodded.

Sakura on the other hand looked about as nervous as she was when she was in the office of her rather nice dictator. Seeing the apprehensive look on the face of student who reminded him of his teammate Rin, Kakashi did his best with trying to ease her fears.

This was something that was harder than it had to be for Kakashi. He wasn't someone who had experience with teenage girls. When all of the girls were fawning over him, he was too focused on completing missions to associate with girls. It was only later, after the death of his sensei that Kakashi started being interested in the opposite sex. By that stage though, he had burned all of his bridges and the girls had moved on so he thought. There were still one or two who had crushes on him although none were brave enough to go up and talk to him after all of the previous times that they had seen him reject other girls.

"Maa, don't worry about it Sakura-chan. I won't let anything happen to you. I promise that, I'll even stake my life on that claim, so you don't need to be afraid." Kakashi said to hopefully ease the emotions of the teenage girl. Indeed it did as the pink haired girl had reassured herself, straightened out her posture and stood with more confidence than what she previously had.

Happy that he had that sorted out, Kakashi said one last thing before he went and used the **Ninpou: Shunshin no Jutsu (Ninja Arts: Body Flicker Jutsu.) **There was the hope that he could go and spend some time at the bar with Gai and Asuma before the mission started. "Now, our mission will start tomorrow morning at 7:00 and I expect you all to be there on time. I have given you enough time to get ready for the mission and I expect you to be ready to go as soon as everyone is there. Oh, one last final piece of advice is that the mission is going to go for 1 week and a half, so pack accordingly." Getting nods from all of his students, Kakashi dispersed in a cloud of smoke leaving three genin to themselves.

Realising that they were alone for a whole day without their sensei being around, Sakura took advantage of what was in front of her. "Hey Sasuke-kun, do you want to go out on a date with me?" the pink haired girl said with the hopes of someday getting into the pants of Sasuke.

Affronted about how little Sakura cared about her ninja life, Sasuke this time around was a little more forceful in his rejection this time around. "No Sakura, you are a ninja, you should be more worried about whether or not you're going to live past this mission. You shouldn't be trying to date me." And with that said, Sasuke not only left but he also brought back all of the insecurities that Kakashi had just previously gotten rid of.

Naruto though had other things on his mind as he knew that he had only one Ninjutsu in his arsenal and for him, that wasn't enough. This was why Naruto headed to the library as he wanted some reassurances to that he would survive this mission in which he could possibly be ambushed. He did not know that Sakura would be depressed for the rest of the day because he was not around to boost up Sakura's spirits. He normally used to do this so it was a crutch that Sakura had gotten used to relying on.

**At the library**

Remembering from what he read not too long ago about how to progress as a ninja, Naruto knew that one of the quickest ways to move from being a genin to a chunin was to learn new jutsu or two. This was because with more jutsu, there were a whole lot more possible strategies that you could come up with.

For an orphan who had no access to a family vault or anything else that held jutsus, Naruto knew that he had to get whatever it he could from the library. Going into the genin section, Naruto picked up the book entitled _moving on from genin to chunin. _Basically, the book showed the small amount of genin willing to go to the library what was the best way to achieve a promotion in the quickest time.

Flipping through the pages of the book from where he randomly flicked it to, Naruto scaled back to the contents page. Finding out that he needed to go to page 33, Naruto did just that and started reading on about elemental ninjutsu. Apparently, it was the easiest aspect of a shinobi art that you could learn quickly on a small scale.

To get anything worthy of becoming a Jonin who specialized in ninjutsu though, it was much harder than a lot of the other shinobi traits; mostly because of the time that it took to get all of the manipulation training down pact.

Flicking to the elemental page Naruto started reading to learn about ninjutsu. Let it not be said that the blonde haired boy was beyond excited, he was absolutely ecstatic! _The first thing that every elemental user needs to know is what element of ninjutsu they have a predisposition to._

_What this means, is that there are elements which will be easier for you to learn jutsus. Conversely, this also means that there will be an element which will be much harder to learn from. That way you know which things to try and learn first. This will make it easier and give you a better sense of accomplishment. It will also help with people getting disheartened as they will be seeing results sooner._

_To find out what element you are, all you have to do is go to your local shinobi gear store, buy some elemental paper, usually it is on the front counter and is plain white which makes the paper easier to distinguish._

_You then have to channel your chakra into the paper and it will tell you what element you lean towards by the reaction it gives off. _

Seeing that he needed to go outside of the library for the next part in his training, Naruto went over to the receptionist and hired the book out for the three week period. He then went out to the closest shinobi store, still under the **Ninpou: Henge no Jutsu (Ninja Arts: Transformation Jutsu) **so that he could get his chakra paper.

Going into the store, Naruto knew that he had to buy some proper ninja clothing if he ever wanted to become a member of the snake clan. When Naruto was going to go over to the male clothing isles and check out what he wanted to purchase, he was hit with a realisation. That was that the people of Konoha did not deserve his hard earned money to go into their pockets.

No, Naruto decided that he would take enough clothes to last him their trip to the land of grass in which he would by all of his clothing there. It was something that he felt justified about. Why should he help the people make a living off of him, when they were the ones who were shunning him from even purchasing their products when he did not have a henge up? It certainly did not take long for Naruto at all to make up his mind. Naruto went up to the cashier and pulled out a piece of paper from the little stand and placed the exact amount of money in which it costed which was $15.00 and left before the cashier could even say thank you for the purchase.

_What a strange kid he was…_ the former Konoha genin thought to herself before she went back to what she was doing before, and that that was filing her nails with a disinterested expression on her face.

**Training ground 7**

After arriving at the training ground Naruto sat down on the ground with his back resting up against a tree.

Getting down to business quickly, Naruto watched in fascination as the paper in his hand reacted to the chakra that he sent through it. Watching how the paper split in half, Naruto wondered just what exactly that meant. Going with that piece of information, Naruto returned his gaze to the book in his hand to see what the book said and where he was supposed to go from here.

_When you channel your chakra the paper will have one of five reactions, well there are possibilities of it showing more which means that you have a bloodline. If that happens, just pick the element that you want to learn out of your two elements and go from there._

_Getting back to the part which the majority will want to find out there answer to, the paper will have five adverse reactions to when you channel your chakra into the paper._

_If you have an affinity to the Katon element (Like most of the Konoha shinobi do) the paper will start to burn and make the paper come alight. The stronger the affinity, the hotter the flame will be. If you have a whitish flame then you have a strong disposition to the fire element._

_If you have an affinity to the Doton element (The second most common element in Konoha.) then the paper will start to crumble into the palm of your hand. The stronger the affinity, the more pieces of dirt the paper will crumble into. If it gets to the point that you have small pebbles in your hand then you have a strong earth element_

_If you have an affinity to the Suiton Element (Just like the Nidaime Hokage who could make water appear out of nothing), then the paper will start to become very soggy and almost soluble. The stronger the affinity,, if it gets to the point that you have drops forming on each of the corners, you will have a strong water element._

_If you have an affinity to the Raiton element (Like practically all of Kumo) then your paper will crinkle into a small ball. The stronger the affinity, the smaller and more compressed the size of the paper ball will become_._ If it gets small enough that it becomes smaller than your little finger, then you have a strong predisposition to the lightning element._

_If you have an affinity to the Fuuton element (The rarest of all the elements) then your paper will split itself into two even pieces. The stronger the affinity, the sharper and more precise of the cut the paper will have. If it gets to the point that your paper's cut is as sharp as the all of the other sides, then you have a strong predisposition to the wind element._

Hearing that Naruto had the rarest of all the elements in the world, made him feel as if there was such a thing called karma and it was slowly repaying him back for this shit life he had been given.

What Naruto did not know though was that with him having the alignment to the wind element, it meant that training in the art was much harder than all of the other elements. This was unless you had a Suiton affinity and you came from Suna. The sole reason behind this was that since the element was so rare, it meant that there were so little people with the element. This meant that there was not as many wind related techniques because there wasn't as many people in history to create them.

This finally culminated in the fact that there were hardly any techniques for the future generations to learn. It was so bad in Konoha that you either had to sort out the son of the Hokage who was someone that was not easy to part way with his techniques. The only other option that you had was to join the dangerous ranks of ANBU to get your hands on the scrolls which had been left by the elder Danzo. He was someone who always believed in strengthening of the Konoha shinobi and he was someone that would do his best to make sure that the future of Konoha would be prosperous.

All of this though was information that the blonde haired boy knew nothing about. Only as he progressed as a shinobi would he find the difficulties in obtaining Fuuton jutsu scrolls. At the moment though, Naruto was fine as it was and he was now reading on about the first jutsu that he would be learning from his element. _**Fuuton: Fudangan Jutsu (Wind Release: Air Bullet Jutsu)**__ this jutsu is the predecessor to a jutsu which is a requirement for all Suna chunin to know before they try out for the rank of Jonin._

Immediately, as soon as the words that Naruto read registered into his mind, he was giddy. In the mind of the freshly minted genin, if it was something that you needed to become a Jonin, then it had to be good.

Naruto was mistaken however as he still did not have any knowledge on how the world outside of Konoha worked. It wasn't because the jutsu was something overly powerful because it was only a B-ranked jutsu. It was just the fact that it had been a tradition that had been in place since the Shodaime Kazekage started the village hidden in the sand.

Anyway… Naruto went back to reading the book so that he could learn what it was that the jutsu did and how he could start the learning process.

_There is a reason as to why this is the first jutsu that wind elementalists learn. This jutsu is meant for teaching the basics of wind ninjutsu and to get a feel for using elemental jutsu in battle._

_This jutsu will send a blast of wind that is shaped into a sphere and sent straight at the user in a singular movement. The power in this jutsu comes from how the wind is compressed into the shape of sphere._

_The hand seals for this technique are as follows: Horse, Snake, Bird, Ram, Tiger, Monkey and finally bird. A hint for all wind users is that generally speaking, most if not all wind ninjutsu end with the bird hand seal._

With all of the knowledge that he needed, Naruto set out in learning his first elemental ninjutsu.

Considering how quickly he learnt the **Ninpou: Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Ninja Arts: Shadow Clone Jutsu) **which was a B-ranked jutsu, the blonde jinchuuriki thought that he would easily be able to learn the C-ranked wind ninjutsu.

This in conjunction with the fact that the paper said he had an affinity for it led Naruto to have an over inflated perception on how easy learning jutsus was without the aid of the Uchiha clan's Dojutsu. It was high time for him that he learnt that fact and not take things for granted.

Usually this would be easier for other genin due to their sensei giving them lessons in basic chakra. Unfortunately for Naruto this was not the case for him and made it harder for him to learn the jutsu.

Even with all the indirect training, it did not give much help in the chakra control department because by the time that Naruto had finished learning the technique to the level that he was satisfied with, it was already well past his self-imposed bedtime of 9:00. By the time that Naruto went into his room and plonked down onto his bed, it was 11:30.

When Naruto started staggering and he could not keep his eyes open for more than half a second before rapidly blinking to keep awake, the blue eyed boy decided to call it a night and go to bed.

Picking up the book that he had just hired that day, even though he was going to be away from it for a week, Naruto felt that it was still well worth hiring because he now felt a lot safer with a new jutsu under his belt.

**The next day **

Thanks to his rather good internal clock, the blonde haired boy named Naruto woke up at 6:30 o'clock in the morning. Despite waking up thirty minutes before he had to be at the front gates of the village, it did not mean that Naruto would have enough time to get ready.

Needing to have a shower to get the stench of all of the effort he put into his training the previous night, Naruto used this time to get inside the hot water and scrub down his body. He knew that he wasn't going to get a shower until they got to their hotel in Kusa which was 3 days away so he had to make the most of it.

The prospect of going to the land of grass' hidden village via the muggy swamps which made up the path between the two villages was not something that Naruto was not looking forward to.

Getting out of the shower, Naruto went over to the chest of drawers in the room and pulled out all the clothes that he would need for the mission until he could go to a store in Kusa in which he could buy some new clothes there.

It was then that Naruto pulled out his trusty orange tracksuit. Contrary to popular belief, Naruto did not wear a hideous bright orange jumpsuit. He actually wore a hideous orange tracksuit. The only difference between that it was a two piece ensemble instead of the one piece requirement of a jumpsuit.

Along with pulling out the track suit, Naruto also pulled out a pair of orange and green boxers and a plain black t-shirt underneath. One minute later and Naruto was all dressed and now ready to go onto his next task for the morning and that was eating.

Having a giant fox sealed inside your stomach made Naruto suffer from something that all decent doctors would diagnose as Attention deficit disorder or ADD for short. This made it almost impossible for Naruto to stay still for long periods of time.

The result of this meant that Naruto, without the help of the academy teachers to give him a specialised education with a more hands on approach, would become a shinobi that didn't amount to much as a shinobi.

What many of the shinobi of Konoha who thought that Naruto had a near infinite supply of endorphins and adrenaline, was actually the cause of having too much energy and him needing to find a way to release it. All this culminated into Naruto becoming increasingly agitated as to why he had to wait 5 minutes for his breakfast to get ready. Eventually, Naruto was allowed to eat the food in front of him and he did just that!

Without all of the manners that Naruto had been trying so hard to learn, the blue eyed boy dug ferociously into his breakfast. Ten cups of instant ramen and two glasses of milk later and Naruto's hunger was satisfied… for the time being.

Packing his backpack with all of his clothes and a sleeping bag, Naruto looked around for anything else that he needed. It was there that he found something that he was relieved not to have forgotten. Picking it up, Naruto idly looked at his wallet. He wondered where he got that from. It was one of his most treasured possessions for one simple reason and one simple reason only.

It was the first present that Naruto had ever received, period. Naruto didn't know where he got the oddly shaped frog style wallet but he was nonetheless very grateful for it. The thing that baffled him the most though was that there was no name on the card that came with the present.

Dismissing the thoughts that drifted down memory lane, Naruto placed his fat, full of money wallet inside the right side pocket in the hopes that if, someone went through his backpack, they would forget to look at the smaller pockets and go for the big ones.

**At the gate**

Arriving at the main gate of Konoha, Naruto spotted his two teammates in Sakura and Sasuke sitting down on a bench with Sakura fawning over Sasuke. Said Uchiha, was trying valiantly to stay calm and collected and keep up his image.

That was why he was extremely thankful when someone caused a big enough distraction that it got the fan girl to turn her attention to something else.

That new source of her attention was none other than the final member that made up team 7. It was none other than Naruto Uzumaki. Rudely pointing her finger out at Naruto in an accusing gesture, Sakura shouted at Naruto. "You're late!" the pink haired girl said as she expected an answer from the blonde haired boy in front of her.

Said blonde haired boy replied in the polite tone of voice that he had been practising in using for the last month as it gave him more chance to get in the snake clan which was something that he was trying valiantly to achieve.

"Sorry I am late Sakura, I went to bed late last night because I was preparing for today and that made me wake up late. By the time I was ready it was 7:15 and I tried my best to get here as quick as possible." Naruto said as he hoped that he said it polite enough so that it placated the anger of Sakura.

Luckily for the underdog of the century, what he said and the way he said it was enough to make the anger inside of Sakura recede back into her body, not out into the open like it usually did when it concerned him.

It was then at that moment that Naruto became curious about why there sensei wasn't here with them. "Hey Sakura, where is our sensei Kakashi? And why isn't he here with us? I mean that you would have thought that when he got our first major mission then he would be here on time wouldn't you?" Naruto questioned to his pink haired teammate.

Sakura, for her part, her anger started rising again because she thought that Naruto purposefully asked a stupid question to her and expected her to answer it.

_Ha, Shannaro! The nerve of Naruto! Asking me where Kakashi-sensei is. Can't he see that he isn't here, what does he expect me to know, I might be the smartest person our age, but it's even past my limits to know why our sensei isn't even here._

Those were the thoughts going through the mind of Sakura and they influenced what she said. "How am I supposed to know Naruto-baka? Honestly, you try and become smarter and yet you still ask the stupidest questions…" Sakura said as she trailed off and turned her attention to Sasuke who was not looking at either one of them, though this did not mean that Sasuke was listening into their conversation because he was. He wanted to find out why Naruto was late as well, just he had an image to hold up and that he didn't want to mess it up.

Naruto on the other hand was angry at Sakura. He honestly thought to himself that his question wasn't at all stupid. What if Kakashi-sensei had come here earlier to tell them that he was going to be back shortly? The least she could have done was be just as polite as he was when answering the question and just say that she didn't know where their sensei was.

**Time skip**

2 and a half hours later and Naruto was absolutely fuming with anger. If someone looked at his face though, they would see a big scowled stitched onto his face.

The reason some might ask why the jinchuuriki of the strongest demon in existence was absolutely lived and furious? Well that was easy. It was because Naruto had to get up early, even when he was tired to prepare for the mission that he was going on.

While this was happening, his sensei was happily sleeping. It was at this time that one Naruto Uzumaki lost a lot of respect for his sensei because he thought that when push came to shove and they were starting their first mission, his sensei would be there for them to guide them through the process of their first real mission.

15 minutes later and FINALLY Kakashi Hatake, the former ANBU captain came to where his three students were sitting down on a park bench, patiently waiting for him.

With a puff of smoke Kakashi appeared in front of team 7. This brought out the customary shout of disapproval coming from the pink haired kunoichi on the team. "YOU'RE LATE!" Sakura angrily shouted at the man that made her have to wait so long when she could have spent the extra time making herself more beautiful.

Shrugging nonchalantly in a way that garnered the ire of even the most stoic out of the three, the raven haired boy Sasuke, Kakashi replied to the demanding tone of his only female student. "Maa, sorry I'm late; you see there was a ladder in my apartment's doorway. I had to wait until the people finished doing work in the ceiling so that I could go out or otherwise, I would have bad luck and we wouldn't want for that to transfer over to you now would we?" Kakashi asked, although it was a rhetorical question and didn't expect a reply from any of them.

Just to rub it in even more, he walked over to Sakura and ruffled the hair that she had spent the good part of an hour getting into a near perfect hairstyle only for it to be ruined when her sensei touched it. Fuming with anger at what her sensei had just done, Sakura quickly pulled out her mirror to try and get her hair into what she thought was a respectable style.

Seeing what had just happened to his pink haired teammate was something that made Naruto smirk. He thought that she deserved it because she was a kunoichi and definitely not a model like what the girl liked to think. With all the water now under the bridge, Kakashi directed his team on their first ever trip outside the village

**Time skip**

Naruto was the first one out of the group that made up team 7 to watch the sunrise that occurred over the grassy plains of Kusagakure. It was a sight that made Naruto wish that he could see it every morning because of how beautiful it was.

Before Naruto could get too entranced into the beauty that was the sunrise over the plains of Kusagakure, he knew that work comes before play and it was no different than right now. Doing just as he had been instructed to by his sensei, Kakashi Hatake, Naruto went over to each the two tents that held where he and Sasuke slept and the other tent that held Sakura and Kakashi.

It only took a slight shake of the tent to wake up Kakashi who mentally thanked Naruto and got out of his sleeping bag and woke up the only female that was a part of team 7.

While Kakashi was waking both himself and Sakura up, Naruto went over to the tent that both he and Sasuke were sharing and saw that Sasuke was shivering and shaking.

Thinking that it was because Sasuke was cold, Naruto went up to him and shook him until he was awake. "Hey Sasuke, you were shaking and shivering heaps so I thought that you might want to get up and do some exercise so that you can warm your body up." Naruto said softly because he knew from firsthand experience what the cold was like.

In reality, it wasn't that Sasuke was cold at all. It was just that he was remembering the night in which his older brother had ruthlessly slain his whole entire clan which also consisted of his mother and father. Using the excuse that Naruto had just given him, Sasuke woke up and got out of his sleeping bag. After waking up, done the raven haired Uchiha put on an Uchiha style jaket.

Said jacket did not look any different from the blue top that he wore when it was warmer. In fact, the only difference was that it was a thicker material, had long sleeves and had a black lining where the zipper was.

Sasuke was not the only person who also feeling the cold. Sakura Haruno had pulled on a pair of skinny legged denim jeans in the hopes of still staying attractive in Sasuke's eyes by having clothes that hung to her body. There was not much she could do about the top half of her body though because the only thing she could do about that was where the thick, pink jumper that clung as best as it could to her body. The only good thing about this was that since it was a little short on her, it meant that she didn't have the chance of getting her hands caught in the hems of her jumper.

Naruto though, there was no change in his appearance because he had on his trusty old orange tracksuit. The reason behind this though was that he didn't have any warmer clothes to wear. This was the part in which the Kyubi became useful to Naruto. It was in the giant fox demon's best interest in getting Naruto into a fighting fit condition. After all, if Naruto died then so did he.

After using the trail ration bars that Kakashi had ordered them to get, the team of one Jonin and three genin packed up and once that was done, Kakashi got rid of all signs that anyone had slept at their campsite that previous night.

Sensing two incoming chakra signatures that were ready and waiting to attack their prey, Kakashi felt something familiar about one of the incoming chakra signatures growled under his mask because he knew exactly who it was that was coming after his team.

Sensing the other smaller chakra beside him, Kakashi could tell that the Iwa leader had been arrogant in believing that a chunin would be able to take on all of his students at once and expect to win.

This was going to be the baptism of fire for team seven and Kakashi really hoped that his team swam instead of sinking.

"Team" Kakashi said in a tone that was not too far from the one that he used when he was in the ANBU corps. Hearing the seriousness in Kakashi's voice, all of team 7 turned and gave him their full attention. "There are two incoming enemy ninja both from Iwa so you can guess that they both have a Doton element and will be using earth based techniques. There is one Jonin and a chunin judging by the chakra signatures that they are emitting."

"This is baptism by fire and something that I wanted to avoid but I guess that I don't have that luxury. The Jonin is way too tough for you to handle and I will be facing him alone. That means that you three will have to deal with the chunin until I am done with my opponent and can then finish them off.

If in the event that you finish off your opponent before I do with mine, do not come to try and aid me. You will only get in the way and make it easier for him to get an advantage as he could take either one of you as a hostage." Kakashi said in a forceful and demanding tone. He knew that the lives of his genin were on the line and he wasn't going to take any chances with the last living legacies of his past dying.

All of team 7 nodded and had a resolute facial expression on their face as they knew that they were going to be facing their first real test and it was one that they couldn't fail.

"You're best bet right now is to think up a strategy together as a team because I will not be able to help you. You're all on your own for this battle." Kakashi said to the team which nodded and started thinking about a plan.

Since Sakura had the most knowledge out of all of the three members, one would guess that she would be the best person to think up a plan. You'd be wrong in that regard because what the academy never taught to the aspiring genin at the time was how to properly put the information that she learnt at the academy, into the battlefield.

Thus the chief plan maker fell onto the shoulders of the rookie of the year, Sasuke Uchiha. For the first time in his life, even Sasuke was feeling the pressure and thus acted on his gut instinct rather than his head which also contained his massive and over bloated ego.

"All right, here is what we're gonna do. Naruto you need to be the meat shield for the first part so we can see what our enemy's attacks are like and see if we need to change our strategy during the battle." Sasuke said just as if he was a natural born leader on the battlefield. Coincidentally, he had the confidence and courage to take risks to be a chunin; it was just that he didn't yet have the experience.

Deciding that he should go into more detail than what he had just said, Sasuke started speaking once again. "Naruto, how many of those clones can you make that would be up to battle standards?" Sasuke questioned the orange wearing ninja.

It took Naruto a little while before he could give Sasuke an honest answer. "My absolute maximum is around about 150 give or take the time during the battle I can recover some small amounts of chakra to fuel some more clones." Naruto replied to the kid who had taken command.

Working with the information that Naruto had given him, Sasuke's mind started forming a plan. "Right, Naruto, your clones are going to go and attack him first so we can see what how he fights and how we can use that to our advantage.

When your clones are doing this, Naruto I want them to try their hardest to get them to hold onto him so he can't move." Sasuke paused for a second for the information to sink through to Naruto who nodded and had a determined look on his face.

"Right, during when your clones are trying to hold him down, all three of us will be throwing kunai and shuriken to hurt them so that he will have a harder time moving.

When Naruto's clones get a good hold of him I will use my **Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu (Fire Release: Grand Fireball Jutsu) **on him and then we will finish him off." Both of Naruto and Sakura looked affronted at the fact that they would have to witness someone dying on their first mission. Despite this look of unease, the three all had looks of pure determination on their faces as they readied themselves for the approaching battle.


	3. With drops of jupiter in her hair

On one side of the grassy plains there was the man known famously around the world as the copycat ninja. That man's real name though was none other than Kakashi Hatake, the son of the White Fang, a Konoha shinobi that was said to be able to rival the Sannin when they were in combat.

Down the road that was Kakashi's life, when the silver haired kid at the time became Jonin at age thirteen, which by the way was the youngest age that someone had ever earned the promotion to the rank of Jonin in Konoha. It was at this time that Kakashi got his first mission in charge.

Unfortunately the mission didn't go well due to a myriad of reasons and it scarred Kakashi Hatake for life. When his sensei had come to rescue Kakashi and Rin, one of the enemies managed to escape the future Yondaime Hokage. Aforementioned person bragged about being one of the only people to escape Minato Namikaze and thus entered the Konoha Bingo Book.

For Kakashi, this battle just got personal and he was going to everything that was in his power to avenge his fallen friend / comrade and teammate by killing Kakko of Iwa. It would allow the silver haired man a small bit of closure for what happened that fateful day.

As he hadn't had a good fight in a long time, it was Kakko who was the one to take initiative. "Well Kakashi-san, how about we go further into the woods so that we can give our battle the fight that it truly deserves." The brown haired man questioned to the silver haired man.

It was a catch 22 for Kakashi. Whilst he did want to separate Kakko from his genin so that so there was no repeat of a hostage situation, he knew absolutely nothing about the chunin and whether or not his team could cope with him. In the end, he decided that he simply had to put faith into his students and hope for the best. With both of them nodding, the two of them took off to the right in which they would have their rematch.

**With team 7**

"Hahaha! Go along little kiddies, I'll let you use this time so that you can form a plan. Come on, show me all of that teamwork that you Konoha scum pride yourselves on." The man with only one sleeve boasted.

With the free invitation given to them, Sasuke took the time to once again take action and give the team a plan. "Look guys, he's so egotistical, it's something that we can use to our advantage. Naruto you run in only by yourself and me and Sakura will throw kunai's at him.

They will sail past your head and by the time they reach the guy, I want you to use your **Ninpou: Kage Bunshin (Ninja Arts: Shadow Clone Jutsu) **and then we will just use the same plan from before, got it?" Sasuke said, clearly taking leadership over the team. Naruto and Sakura didn't have any issues as they couldn't think of a better plan given the time frame. Not once during his speech about the enemy being egotistical did Sasuke notice the irony in what was coming out of his mouth.

"Alright, go Naruto, we'll cover you with kunai." Sasuke commanded to which Naruto nodded and charged in at the chunin from Iwa.

Said chunin from the land of earth was curious as to what the genin managed to come up with in such a short amount of time. Whatever it was, it was not as if the kids had a chance to beat him, he was a chunin after all and they were fresh genin judging by the look of Naruto's clothes.

When Naruto got within what would be a spot where, had he had a large sword in his hand then he could swing it at his enemy, his mind came up with a slight addition to Sasuke's plan.

Putting extra amounts of chakra into the technique, Naruto made a large plume of smoke appear as he used the jutsu that he was most comfortable with. This intended distraction certainly caught the eyes of the Iwa chunin.

Being caught off guard by the smoke being caused by the jutsu, Junta did not know what was going to come next. That was why he prepared himself for the worst. It was something that was just ingrained into him from his shinobi training in Iwagakure.

Since Sasuke had thrown the kunai with such force, it didn't matter than Naruto had made some clones for the bladed metal to go through. As the flying death devices sailed through the cloud of smoke, they killed a couple of clones in the process and went en route to hit their original target. Sakura's kunai sadly did not have the muscle behind them like Sasuke's and as such stopped when they hit one of Naruto's clones.

In the mind of Naruto, the smokescreen and the loss of a few clones was all worthy as long as all of team 7 got out of this encounter with their lives and no permanent injuries.

Piercing Naruto's clone, the two kunai that Sasuke threw at his first real enemy in his first real battle went on to score successive hits on the Iwa chunin. The first one caused a shallow cut onto his left hip. Because of the way that the chunin was standing, his hip was further to Sasuke's left then what his thigh muscle was. That was why the second kunai that he had thrown easily did more damage to the man than the first one.

Sticking painfully into the thigh muscle of the Iwa chunin, Sasuke was smirking as he saw that he damage he had caused was enough for Naruto to get three clones to jump on him and hold onto a limb with the only free one being the man's left arm.

While the clones of Naruto were holding onto each of the limbs as if it was like a dog humping somebody's leg, Naruto had moved his body around so that the knee of each of his clones was resting on the limb that they were holding onto to.

In a split second after Naruto's clones had gotten into position, they immediately went to work doing their part in the plan that Sasuke had set out for the team. That was to make it so that it would be easier for Sasuke to hit the guy with his **Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu (Fire Release: Grand Fireball Jutsu.)** The way how they did that was by repeatedly jamming their kneecaps into the side of the limbs that they were holding onto. Each of the clones managed to get 2 hits on the limb before they were destroyed.

"**Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu (Fire Release: Grand Fireball Jutsu)" **Sasuke called out as he placed his hands into the tiger sign and brought the two offending appendages to his mouth so that he could blow out fire from his mouth.

Racing towards it intended target in an uncontrolled manner, the chunin from the land of earth groaned with the added weight onto his right, and preferably his dominant hand and moved it along with the other hand to perform one of his own Jutsu so that he could escape the incoming uncontrolled fireball.

"**Doton: Shinju Zanshu (Earth Release: Double Suicide Decapitation no Jutsu)" **The black haired chunin said out loud as he dug into the ground to escape the oncoming blast that left only the clones to take the full force of the C-ranked Jutsu from Sasuke.

Hearing the name of the jutsu that the man called out, Sasuke remembered exactly where he had heard it before. "Guys" Sasuke said getting the attention of Sakura and Naruto as they tried to find out where the man had gone to.

"This was the Jutsu that Kakashi used on me when we had our genin test." Sasuke said as knew what was going on. "Our enemy is underground and is going to pull at least one of us underground. The reason he does this is that so he can target the other two while he makes the one he took down watch on helplessly since there's nothing that they can do." Sasuke announced to his team who sent him grateful looks and nodded as they shifted their attention to the ground to see when and where their enemy would pop up.

Hearing what the black haired kid had said when he was underground made the chunin curse under his breath and started to think up a new plan. _Curse those brats; they actually made a good strategy that caused me to suffer an injury. And wait… what's this? They actually know what jutsu I'm using at the moment, Grrr, guess I have to turn this up a notch. I never would have expected some fresh out of the academy gaki's to be this good._

Hearing what the black haired boy had just stated, Junta came to the conclusion that it was Sasuke who was in charge out of the three. Deciding on how he was going to attack the three twelve year old kids, the Iwa chunin made his move with his target being one raven haired boy Sasuke Uchiha. The theory was that if he cut off the head, the limbs would cease to move cohesively.

As soon as he saw a hand pop out of the ground, the Uchiha clan heir quickly moved his right foot so that the man could not get a hold of the appendage and drag him under ground.

What Sasuke did not realise was that this was only a distraction for the real part of the Iwagakure ninja's plan. The real part of his attack was to the left leg of Sasuke. Shooting out of the ground at relatively fast pace, the right hand of the Iwa chunin emerged out of the ground and went after the ankle of Konoha's last hope in reviving the Uchiha clan.

Thankfully for Sasuke, his left leg was still out in the open and had it in the air so no one could get a hold of it. Seeing the arm that was trying to attack his leg, Sasuke saw this as an opportunity for him to hopefully divert the man underneath him away from the grip that he had on his right leg. With the left foot that Sasuke lifted up just recently, he slammed it on the hand holding his right leg repeatedly. Had Junta not released his arm, he knew for certain that his arm would have been broken thanks to the force of Sasuke's kicks.

_Damn that kid... if only he hadn't had any experience in having the technique used on him then it would have made it much easier! I guess that since Kakko-sempai could be having trouble with Kakashi, I better finish these kids off so that I can go and quickly help him defeat Kakashi. _The Iwa chunin thought to himself as he wanted to get into the good books of Kakko. The sole reason behind this was so that the man would vouch for him when it came to his chances of gaining his Jonin promotion.

Thinking of the possible ways that he could win the match, the Iwa chunin had decided the best way was to use his most powerful jutsu. It came as no coincidence that this jutsu was one that he had just created before coming on this mission. Having Just finished creating his own jutsu; Junta decided that he wanted to test it out in battle. With their being no better opponents than fresh out of the academy genin who had no idea as to what was going on, the black haired man unleashed his attack on Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke.

Casting his jutsu, the chunin from the land of earth silently made the earth around him turn into mud and form into the shape that he wanted to about five metres behind team 7. This was all the while still staying underground as it was needed for the jutsu.

To complete the jutsu that he was making, the black haired individual slowly rose up from the ground as he let the mud consume layers on top of his body. As he was doing this, he made sure to include little pocket holes inside the mud so that air could get in and out, allowing him to breathe inside his own creation.

Finally once the jutsu was done, the Iwa chunin fired off what would be the first bullet made out of earth at Sasuke. Confident that none of the genin would be able to hear the hardened clump of mud that was sailing through the air, junta waited so that he could do some gloating. It was fun toying with the emotions of Konohagakure genin after all.

This would be his downfall as he didn't take the chance to press his advantage. It was this that would give them the time to regroup and think up a new plan.

Sadly for the green eyed chunin from Iwa, there was indeed one genin that did heard the attack sail through the air. If there was one good thing that came from the severe paranoia that Naruto had as a child, it was that he had heightened senses to hopefully prevent an incoming attack.

Acting on instinct, the blonde haired member of the Uzumaki clan turned around and was shocked at what he saw. For there, going in the direction at where his only male friend was standing, was a football sized sphere of mud. Naruto knew that it would cause serious damage to Sasuke if he didn't do anything about it real soon.

That was why Naruto, who had no sense of cowardice dived in the direction of the last loyal Uchiha to Konoha and pushed him out of the way. Unlike many other genin, Naruto did the courageous thing that many other genin and even chunin wouldn't do.

Though with everything in life, not everything can go the way that you want it and it was no different with Naruto pushing Sasuke aside. With the way Naruto jumped side on, it meant that his body was in the line of fire. Unfortunately for the blonde haired Uzumaki, he did not pull of the heroic deed without sustaining a mobility crippling injury.

Naruto got hit in the right ankle which lucky for him was not his dominant leg. Hearing the loud cry of agony just after he had been pushed aside, Sasuke turned around to see something that looked all too familiar to him. That was the feeling of helplessness and the emotion coming on VERY strong. There in front of him was Naruto, the only person his age he had formed a bond of remote friendship with out of all of the people in the academy. He was the only other kid around his own age that knew that pain of being truly and utterly alone.

Unconsciously channelling chakra into his eyes, Sasuke felt the familiar feelings of rage, anger and utter helplessness. This was due to the fact that these were the exact same emotions he felt when he had to watch his clan, his family, his mother and father get brutally murdered at the hands of his elder brother: the person who he idolized the most.

That was the activation of his clan's prized Kekkai genkai, the sharingan. With one tomoe in each eye, Sasuke took command of the situation and started feeding off of the adrenaline that was being fed by his anger.

"Sakura!" Sasuke shouted at Sakura as she was too shocked at seeing the damage that Naruto had suffered when he took the hit for Sasuke. Thankfully for Sasuke this was enough to bring the pink haired girl out of stunned stupor and got her focusing on her now red eyed teammate.

"Take Naruto into the tree line so that we can think of a plan to hopefully win this without any more injuries while we stall some time for Kakashi-sensei to come in an help. While you're doing this I will buy you some time. Got it?" Even as Sasuke said the word help, he had said it with disdain but he was not going to put his own ego over other people that were close to getting hurt or possibly worse, killed. Not especially after the fact that said injured person had been the one to save him. He had already gone through a lot of emotional pain when that had happened before and he certainly did not want to have it happen again.

Nodding dumbly at the commanding aura that her crush had taken on when he spoke to her. In her humble opinion, Sakura thought the Sasuke was hot as hell when he commanded her. The inner tsundere was coming out.

Sakura picked up Naruto as best she could so that she wouldn't injure his right ankle anymore. At the present moment, she could tell it was broken just by looking at it.

Turning around to where the mud had been shot at, Sasuke saw the person responsible for Naruto having to cover his arse. In the mind of Sasuke, the raven haired Uchiha was not seeing Junta in front of him, instead he was seeing an Itachi shaped Junta which. This was the cause of untold psychological damage inflicted onto him as a kid.

Right in front of him was mud shaped animal that was at least 3.5 metres long and that was about one metre wide in circumference at the base. As the structure rose from the ground, it slowly got thinner.

That was just the basic design of what he was seeing, the more detailed version would also include how it the mud was shaped and moulded into a dragon. Just to make Sasuke even angrier, in its mouth, was another one of the balls of mud that Naruto got hit with.

"Hahaha, look at my greatest technique that I will now be testing on its first victims. Don't even think about trying to win because this jutsu is so awesome that no one can defeat it." Although the man was wrong in the statement, it did not make Sasuke feel any less nervous.

"Isn't it such a wonderful Jutsu, I call my pride and joy the **Doton: Dai Doryudan no Jutsu (Earth Release: Great Mud Dragon Bullet Jutsu.) **I call it this because I combined two jutsus into one jutsu that is even better than the two jutsus combined. I combined the **Doton: Doryudan no Jutsu (Earth Release: Mud Dragon Bullet Jutsu)** with the **Doton: Dosenkiryu (Earth Release: Earth and Stone Dragon Jutsu) **and you get to be the first person to see what it does other than me." The chunin from Iwa proudly boasted as he had been waiting for this moment for quite a while.

Having heard enough from the man that caused Naruto to have a broken leg, Sasuke launched himself at a speed that was even faster than what Naruto had used before.

With the aid of his newly activated Dojutsu and the adrenaline pumping in his body, the raven haired, red eyed boy easily dodged the multiple shots of mud being fired at him thanks to his better vision.

Since Sasuke was running on pure adrenaline and instinct alone, it meant that he wasn't that creative when it came to thinking of ways to take down the giant mud dragon. That was why if either Kakashi or Kakko were to witness what was going on, they would find Sasuke standing at the base of the earthen dragon delivering punches and kicks as fast and as hard as he could, all the while dodging the mud bullets being fired off at him.

After a minute of nothing happening to the towering flexible statue of mud that was firing bullets at Sasuke, the raven haired Uchiha clan heir changed his style of attack when he heard the taunting voice of the brown haired chunin that was covered in chakra enhanced mud.

"Hahaha! Mere punches won't be able to break my jutsu; the mud will just absorb the power behind them into the ground. Kid you better try something knew or otherwise I'll end this soon." The chunin from Iwa said which only spurred Sasuke on even further.

Taking out a two kunai with the intent of using each one in each hand, Sasuke started slashing wildly in the hopes of cutting down the mud dragon. Realising what the kid was trying to do, the green eyed man took the battle a little bit more seriously as over time; the kid would be able to severely weaken his jutsu.

Getting fired at by an even larger volley of chakra powered mud bullets; Sasuke did not have the speed to dodge all of the blasts. That was why when he was hit in his right outer bicep he dropped his kunai onto the ground.

Normally Sasuke would have gone to pick a new kunai from out of his pouch and start attacking again, but seeing the little amount of damage that he had been able to cause with the kunai's and settled with trying to figure out a new way to defeat his opponent.

It was then that the boy from the clan known for their heavy use of fire ninjutsu remembered that he did indeed know a fire jutsu that he could use. Jumping back so that he could put some much needed distance between the two, Sasuke started the hand seals for an Uchiha clan famous jutsu.

Knowing what the boy wanted to do, he shot off a few mud bullets off in quick succession to stop Sasuke from completing the hand sequence and bringing his hands up to his mouth so that he couldn't use the fire Jutsu.

Cursing as he had to break the hand signs as well as his concentration so that he could dodge the incoming attack, it was at this moment that the boy's red eyes noticed something that gave him a new strategy in mind.

Sasuke quickly formed a plan in his mind and did his best to execute it. Running in circles around the dragon made out of chakra enhanced mud, Sasuke's intentions was for it to twist up and give him a good chance at landing the jutsu on the Iwa Chunin.

After one minute of constantly running around, Sasuke thought that now would be the right time to use his jutsu. Starting the hand signs, Sasuke was able to get into position with his hands at his mouth. Calling out the name of the jutsu, Sasuke laid a volley of one large fireball aimed directly at the base of where the **Doton: Dai Doryudan no Jutsu (Earth Release: Great Mud Dragon Jutsu) **resided.

This time the jutsu hit the side of the mud dragon because at the last second the black haired, green eyed Iwa chunin managed to just move the majority of his dragon out of the way to escape the incoming fireball. Some of the fire that Sasuke had bellowed out connected with the upper left part of the twisted dragon and it took some damage.

Hearing the beyond angry expression coming from the mouth of the Iwa chunin that raged on about how he was stupid he Sasuke just realised, he might have just bitten off a bit more than he could chew.

With that in mind, Sasuke hurriedly headed away into the forest from where he open plain that he was standing in. The intention was to give him some time to think up a new strategy as the previous ones obviously didn't work out all that well.

When he hopped past the first few trees, something caught the eyes of the last loyal Uchiha to Konoha. That was the sight of not only the pink jacket that Sakura had been wearing earlier that day but also the pink hair that was also unmistakably Sakura's.

Fuming internally, Sasuke spoke up. "What the hell are you doing? You're supposed to be much further ahead than this. The point of the of me making the distraction was to get you further ahead so that you could get some help to finish this off but also so that you can get someone to fix Naruto's leg." Sasuke seethed because he did not want to be reminded of how Naruto got injured.

Visibly deflating because it was her crush that was speaking to her in that way, Sakura wondered whether she made the right decision concerning the team. It was then that she remembered that this team was her home away from home considering all of the fights going on between her parents about the divorce, her team was her indirect family and she wanted them to stay as close as possible.

Growing a spine for once when it concerned her crush on near obsessive proportions, Sakura actually spoke back at Sasuke. "The first lesson that Kakashi-sensei taught us all Sasuke-kun was that _in the ninja world, those who break the rules are trash, that's true, but those who abandon their comrades are worse than trash._ Just because you wanted to do the heroic thing, it doesn't mean that you're not part of the team. Here's a new saying that team 7 is going to abide by from now on. 'One for all and all for one!'" the pink haired girl shouted at Sasuke who was stunned from actually having one of his biggest fan girls talk back at him in such a manner.

Naruto for his part was just as shocked as he had been the third wheel during the conversation and it was then that he had a brilliant plan to take down that blasted dragon made out mud.

Speaking for the first time since he had suffered the injury that was not a howl of pain coming from his lower right limb, Naruto got the attention of both of his teammates. Naruto used the makeshift crutch that Sakura had built from four sticks and some ninja wire so that he could stand… barely and then started speaking to his two other teammates.

Hearing the grunting that Naruto was going through as he got up which showed Sakura and Sasuke how much pain Naruto was feeling from his broken ankle.

"I've got a plan so that we can beat this guy. Sasuke, how much chakra do you have and how many of those fireballs can that make?" Naruto, who was standing via the aid of the crutch that Sakura had just recently made.

It only took just a few seconds for the sharingan wielder to reply with the answer of two which gave Naruto another question that he needed to ask. "Would it be possible for you to instead of making two fireballs and make one really large one without it blowing up in our faces when I stand beside you?" Naruto asked once again to which Sasuke nodded, confident in his abilities with fire manipulation.

"Now I need something more for my plan to work out, Sakura" Naruto questioned which brought the girls gaze to him as he asked her a question. "Sakura, do you have anything other than the standard kunai, shuriken and the ninja wire that you used to use this make this crutch?" Naruto asked his former pink haired crush.

Nodding, Sakura produced a kunai, though it was not just a standard kunai, no this was one of the special explosion kunai that her parents had bought her for a graduation present in case she ever needed it.

Unlike the other kunai, these were made out of a special chakra conducting material which allowed for better placement of seals onto the kunai thus increasing said seal's effectiveness. Along with that, Jiraiya had also placed stronger explosion seals on them to give them a bit more oomph.

To offset the much more enemy friendly kunai to the shinobi on the battlefield, the kunai had to be sold at a premium price. All in all, it was lucky and rare for a genin, let alone a freshly minted genin to get their hands on one.

"Yeah, this is a special explosion kunai" Sakura said to which both Naruto and Sasuke looked on with newfound interest because they both knew that this kunai was more power packed than the regular kunai that explosions seals on them.

As soon as Naruto recognized what Sakura had in her hand he grinned because it was exactly what he needed when it came to his brilliant plan. With a smile on his face, Naruto addressed both Sasuke and Sakura. "That's great Sakura! That'd be perfect for what I've got planned." Naruto had a slight pause in his speech before he started continuing to talk about his plan as he was in a hurry because of the Iwa chunin.

"The day that we found out about us going on a mission, as soon as we went our separate ways, I went straight to the library to hopefully learn a new jutsu. I did just that." At this point Sasuke was livid because he had spent so much time just learning his fire release and that took ages for him to learn. He would question Naruto about that later and find out how he learnt it so quickly. This was because he wanted to put whatever knowledge Naruto had gained, into his own training methods.

"I learnt a wind release jutsu that is quite powerful on its own although it's nowhere near as powerful when it is combined with fire." At this point both Sasuke and Sakura looked at Naruto and knowing where he was going with this plan. Naruto wanted for all three of them to combine their attacks at the giant mud dragon.

It was then that the pink haired genin had a question in her mind that needed to be answered before they could take down their target. "Wait, Naruto how are you going to be able to use your jutsu, you can hardly move." Sakura asked with concern as her perception of Naruto had changed throughout this ordeal when she saw what he did for her Sasuke-kun; she was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt as long as he did not ask her out on dates anymore.

Dismissing the concern that Sakura had for him, he did his best to reassure her that he was alright so that the team could focus on the mission. "Don't worry Sakura-chan, I'm running on pure adrenaline at the moment so I can't feel that much pain from it, though when we stop battling, it will hurt quite a lot." Naruto said which made the insecurities that Sakura was feeling go down to a minimum for the moment.

With getting help from both Sakura and Sasuke, Naruto managed to get to the grassy plains. This was only to find a mentally deranged Iwa chunin who was not at all happy for having his prized creation so humiliatingly ruined by a mere academy graduate.

With a nod to one another, all of team 7 started to prepare their respective attacks with Naruto leaning on Sasuke for balance.

"**Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu (Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu), Fuuton: Fudangan no Jutsu (Wind Release: Air Bullet Jutsu)" **Both Sasuke and Naruto called out their respective jutsus as all of team seven watched on in awe at the combined large fireball that was going towards the enemy.

The new and improved fire ball was almost triple the size of one that Sasuke could make by himself. He definitely had to learn that jutsu from Naruto so he could do that on his own.

From afar, to the right, Sakura knew her part and was a little overwhelmed by the combined fireball of Naruto and Sasuke had just made. This was why she was a little slow when it came to doing her part but she nonetheless did it and did it well.

Throwing the special kunai perpendicularly to the line that the combined fireball that Naruto and Sasuke had produced, Sakura waited for the kunai to sail through the air and reach its intended destination which was inside the middle of the middle of the fireball. The point to this was that because of the special kunai and the way how it exploded, she wanted to get all of the metal fragments to go the way of the chunin and not Naruto and Sasuke-kun. That was the good thing about this kunai was that since the seal was engraved into the metal and not on some piece of paper, it meant that the seal could travel into the fire without worry. A normal explosion seal would not have the same luck as it would be consumed by the fire and fizzle out.

Using the superior control over her chakra compared to her two teammates, Sakura used the ram hand sign and channelled some chakra so that the kunai could do what it was intended to do. It was then that inside the giant fireball exploded into an even bigger mass of heat and flames thanks to the explosion seal that was triggered by Sakura.

BOOM! All of team 7 heard as they watched on with fascination at how the fireball engulfed the mud dragon and tore it two pieces. It was then that the genin team being led by Kakashi heard the horrific screams coming from inside the fire. What this did, was that it made them hope that the man inside wasn't going to make it out alive.

Sadly for them, that was not the case because when Sakura had turned her back to the man, just so that she could walk over to her team and celebrate with them, an insane, naked to the highest degree chunin from Iwa came out of the mud with the intent of killing her.

Knowing that only he and Sasuke were the ones to see this and the fact that Sasuke had run out of all of his chakra to use in battle which left it up to Naruto to save the day once again.

Since his hands were still in the final hand seal of his last jutsu, all it left Naruto to do was to inhale some air and channel the necessary chakra to use the jutsu. In fact, it was this little amount of time that Naruto needed to make the jutsu work that saved Sakura's life.

Calling it out once again, Naruto used his jutsu as he managed to time it perfectly when the air bullet came out of Naruto's mouth at just the right time so that the concentrated blast of air managed to collide with the ribs of the Iwa chunin which sent him flying to into the ground.

Hearing the noises coming from Junta, it told Naruto that his jutsu had managed to cause some internal damage. Despite the damage that Naruto had caused to him, the green eyed Iwa chunin managed to get up to attack Sakura once again. She was still in shock from seeing an adult man who was naked charging at her.

This time though, he knew to expect Naruto using a wind ninjutsu at him. It meant that he was now looking at Naruto to see whether or not he would fire another one of the attacks.

That was exactly the case in that Naruto sent another one of the **Fudangan no Jutsu (Wind Release: Air Bullet Jutsu)** and had it aimed directly at the Iwa chunin.

Sadly for all of those who supported for Sakura not getting hurt, Naruto's jutsu did not make contact with the man. The chunin who was but naked managed to dodge the attack and was now running with a deranged look on his face at Sakura with a kunai in hand with the intent to slice her throat.

It was horrific for Sasuke and Naruto as there was nothing that they could do since they were too far away and the chunin was too close to Sakura, they could only hope that this was something that did not separate the team.

Closing her eyes because she feared for her life, Sakura waited for the inevitable blow that meant that she would never be able to see the face of her crush, one Sasuke Uchiha. When the blow didn't come and instead of the blow, there was a really loud crackling sound coming from in front of her, the pink haired girl managed to squint and open one eye and was shocked at what she saw in front of her.

There, in front of her was the chunin from Iwa was standing there, but naked in front of her. What was different though was that he was not moving, unless you counted the massive cough of blood that landed on her dress.

"EWW!" Sakura screamed as she looked down at the two globs of blood that were on the front of her dress. This made her turn around as she was thoroughly grossed out at what had just happened to her.

Thanking the squirt of blood that had made Sakura turn around, the Jonin-sensei of team 7 used this as the ideal time to dump the body onto the ground and quickly use one of his many Doton jutsus to bury the body so that none of his students would have to see the brutal way in which he ended the chunin from Iwa's life.

"I told you Sakura that I wouldn't let anyone hurt you so you don't have to worry about anything like that happening again." Kakashi said as looked around to see what type of condition the rest of his team was in.

It was then that he noticed that Naruto, said boy was leaning quite heavily on a makeshift crutch, immediately the silver haired Jonin worried about something serious happening to his sensei's son. That thought though was cancelled when Kakashi noticed that there was not one spec of blood coming from him. It was this that allowed Kakashi to breathe a sigh of relief as he then turned his attention to his final student.

There was the Uchiha, the other last living reminder to the past that was so painful for him. Seeing that the raven haired boy had his sharingan activated with a tomoe in each my made Kakashi proud that his student had unlocked a piece of his heritage. Seeing that there were no serious injuries to him made Kakashi relieved that even though the mission went slightly pear shaped. The team all managed to pull together and make it through the ordeal.

Calling the two boys over, Kakashi watched as both of them hobbled over to him so that he could inspect them and have a look at their injuries.

Seeing at how little weight Naruto put onto his right leg, told Kakashi that something remotely serious must've happened to it. This meant that Naruto would be the first person to get the quick medical once over.

"Naruto, I need you to pull up your pant leg or do you want me to do it? I need to see what injury you have suffered and whether or not I can give you a temporary fix until we get to the Kusagakure." Kakashi told Naruto to which the blonde haired boy nodded, dropped the crutch and resorted to leaning on Sasuke, much to the boy's displeasure and rolled up his right pant leg.

Just from the quick look that Kakashi had of Naruto's leg, he could see that Naruto had his ankle broken. Thankfully it was a clean snap and only had one break in it. This meant that it was the lowest grade of broken ankles that there was.

It was thanks to having a medical ninja as his teammate that allowed the silver haired Jonin to know what he was supposed to do in this situation. It was then that Kakashi started channelling some lightning chakra into his hand, enough so that his hand had blue sparks coming off of it.

Freaking out at what his sensei was doing, Naruto started getting nervous, so much so that he started back pedalling as best as he could to get away from the crazed man who had blue lightning coming off the tips off of his fingers.

With his hold on Naruto's knee, Kakashi stopped Naruto from moving, and spoke up to stop what feelings of anxiety that Naruto was feeling. "Just trust me Naruto. This will only hurt for a little bit but after that it will be temporarily fixed until we get to a hospital so they can give you proper treatment for your broken ankle." Kakashi said to which Naruto slowly nodded.

Despite not having that much respect for the man since he was constantly 3 hours late to every team meeting that they had had, Naruto still had respect for the man because he had been able to become a Jonin.

Trusting his sensei, Naruto had one more question before he allowed his sensei to do whatever it was he was going to do. "Hey Kakashi-sensei, what is it that you are going to do to my leg to make it better?" Naruto curiously questioned to his sensei. Kakashi smiled under his mask for he was remembering his own childhood curiosity at that moment.

Dispelling the reminiscing thoughts, the silver haired Jonin started explaining to his student what it was he was going to do. "Well I'm going to hit your nervous system from here down" to which at this moment Kakashi touched a couple of points just below where Naruto's knee ended in a circle around his leg.

"This will cause the parts of your leg that send messages to your brain to be temporarily disabled. This means that you won't feel any pain and you won't be able to move it causing any more damage to occur to your ankle." Kakashi said to his student who was injured.

The explanation that Kakashi had given to his student was one that had drawn the attention of Sasuke and Sakura. They wanted to see what their sensei was going to do. Hearing what exactly he was going to do, the two started to stare intently at Naruto's leg as they wanted to see something so useful in the hopes of learning it themselves. They hoped though that they would never have to use it though.

With that said, Kakashi gave Sakura one last order before he did what he had to do to Naruto. "Sakura, I need you to hold Naruto's thigh so that it won't move around and mess this up." the sharingan warrior ordered to which the green eyed girl begrudgingly accepted the task.

"Don't think that me putting my hands on your body means that you have any more of a chance of getting with me Naruto…" Sakura trailed off in a warning tone to remind Naruto that she didn't want him to get the wrong idea. Naruto however did not even bother to comment because he was starting to feel the pain of having the adrenaline from before wear off and now he was left to deal with the pain of his broken ankle all on his own.

5 minutes later and a few agonizing screams coming from the only blonde haired boy in the area meant that Naruto's broken ankle was finally on the path to getting better. It was then that Kakashi decided to tell his raven haired student that he had just activated his sharingan. "Just to let you know Sasuke" Kakashi said as he gained the attention of the rookie of the year. "You just unlocked your sharingan and you've got one tomoe in each eye." Kakashi said to which the raven haired Uchiha fainted with a smile on his face.

Having left holding Naruto's leg, the pink haired girl raced over her crush to see what was wrong with him until she got caught up seeing the smile on his face, one that she had never seen before, sure she had seen him smirk a lot of times but this smile meant that he was truly happy for the first time and reminded her as to why she fell so hard for him in the first place.

It was then that she knew that her sensei had healed Naruto so that meant he would be able to heal her precious Sasuke. "Kakashi-sensei what happened to Sasuke? He just fell onto the ground!" The girl hysterically said to which Kakashi had a good idea but wanted to make sure. Placing his hand over the navel of Sasuke, the silver haired Jonin used the only medical jutsu that he learnt from Rin. That was the diagnostic jutsu.

Eventually, Kakashi took his hand off Sasuke's body when he had made his diagnosis. "Don't worry Sakura, all Sasuke has is chakra exhaustion. All he needs is a good sleep and in the morning he will need to eat a lot of food and after that he will be back to normal." Kakashi said to Sakura who immediately breathed a sigh of relief as none of the injuries that her team had acquired were permanent.

Team 7 had just completed the hardest part of its first mission and both Naruto and Sakura, along with the sleeping Sasuke could be proud of that fact.


	4. Reminds me that

With Sasuke having just fainted, it meant that as the sensei of team 7, Kakashi had to carry back the raven haired boy over his shoulder as they made their way to Kusa.

During this time of walking at a snail's pace in relation to what ninja usually moved at, Naruto had a lot of time to think random thoughts and it was during this moment that he had a question for his sensei, Kakashi Hatake.

That question was one that he asked right away "Kakashi-sensei, how'd your battle go, we had to verse a giant mud monster and he was only a chunin, it must mean that you versed something even cooler."

Thinking that this could be good for not only Naruto but also Sakura because he thought that she needed a bit of an incentive to become a competent shinobi, Kakashi obliged Naruto's question. Thinking about how he should start the story because he did not want to talk about his sharingan eye, Kakashi was brought down memory lane as to what had occurred between himself and Kakko.

**Flash back**

"_So… Kakko how did you manage to get away from sensei's jutsu back in the third great shinobi war?" the sharingan warrior asked dryly as he prepared to be the one to avenge the man who had killed his best friend._

_Boasting with a proud smile; broadly shown on his aging face, Kakko started speaking like he was comparable to a god. This was because he was the only Iwa shinobi to have lived an experience with the famed yellow flash and come out with no permanent injuries from the battle._

"_Well, I used the __**Ninpou: Shunshin no jutsu (Ninja Arts: Body Flicker Jutsu)**__ about 10 times before I used the __**Doton: Dochu Senko (Earth Release: Underground Submarine Voyage Jutsu)**__to swim away about two miles or so and get away from the famed yellow flash."_

_This was good for Kakashi because he was making the brown haired man from Iwa spilling some of the ways that he could possibly use as a means to escape. What this did for Kakashi, was that it gave him time to prepare ways so that he couldn't use those same jutsus again. The quickest thing that Kakashi could think of, was his summons and getting his enemy to waist all of his chakra so that he couldn't do what he had just stated._

**End flashback**

"Hey Kakashi-sensei, Naruto asked you a question." Sakura stated as she too was eager to know how her sensei's battle went on although she tried to act like Sasuke by pretending not to care.

Brought out of his stupor as he was thinking about his battle with Kakko, Kakashi heard the question from his only female student and replied just as he normally would. "Huh, you say something?" Kakashi asked in a tone that both Naruto and Sakura were familiar with.

Frustrated with the way her sensei had talked with her, Sakura angrily spoke once again to hopefully get her sensei to tell both her and Naruto how their sensei won his fight with whoever his opponent was. "Sensei, how'd you managed to beat that Iwa Jonin? That's what Naruto had asked you and we both wanna know the answer to it." The pink haired girl asked with easily detectable traces of anger and annoyance.

"Well how about I start off and whenever you have any questions that you want answered, you can just but in so I can answer your question okay?" the former ANBU captain stated to his two awake and moving students who only nodded as they wanted to hear what a real Jonin vs. Jonin battle was like.

Deciding to start off after where all of the talking finished, Kakashi started reiterating about the battle between him and Kakko.

_The two started running towards each other with their arms ready for a taijutsu battle to break out at any moment. They both knew that there was only going to one person walking away from this fight._

_Determined so that his students would not have to suffer the same emotions that he had when his sensei died, Kakashi prepared for the worst whilst hoping for the best. Engaging in a taijutsu battle to the death was something that was not at all unfamiliar to either shinobi. Warming up was also a common practice during the early stages of a fight between high ranked shinobi. After the first few punches, it was obvious to Kakashi that he had the advantage in speed._

_Despite this advantage for Kakashi, it did not mean that he would have all of the favours going his way because Kakko had one area that Kakashi was beaten in; that was power._

_Kakko's muscles were far more developed compared to what Kakashi's were when it came to the area of how much damage was packed into each punch. It was only after the first kick from Kakko landed on Kakashi' s torso that made the silver haired Jonin rethink his battle strategy._

_The new plan was to dodge and evade all of the attacks. Only when necessary, was he to block the attacks because he did not want to start a close range battle with his opponent because it was not his forte. This compared to how much skill Kakko had shown, it was clear to the sharingan warrior that if the fight stayed a taijutsu fight, the Iwagakure ninja would be the victor._

_Once the warm up was done, it was time that Kakko decided to step up the battle and by that he brought out his retractable blades that were on his forearms and started slashing and stabbing at Kakashi._

_Seeing the way that the fight was headed, Kakashi brought out his own defence to the retractable blades. That was a kunai in each hand so that he had more of a level playing field. Trying to do his best to deflect the incoming attacks coming from Kakko, Kakashi was trying to think of a good plan to defeat his opponent. Deciding that it was best that he brought this fight out into the open plains instead of the trees that they had found themselves in, Kakashi tried to put space in between the two Jonin ninjas. _

"_**Raiton: Raiju Hashiri no Jutsu (Lightning Release: Lightning Beast Running Jutsu)" **__Kakashi called out as he formed his hands into the final hand seal before a wolf made out of lightning appeared out of nowhere. The minute after this happened; it started running along the ground with the sole intention of setting its fangs into the brown haired enemy._

At this point of the story, Kakashi was expecting at least one of his students to question as to a more detailed description of the jutsu. Strangely enough neither one of them questioned him.

_The good thing about this jutsu was that as long as the user held the final hand sign, the jutsu did not require any extra chakra from when the lightning wolf was created. If one was skilled enough in using it, they could also engage in the enemy with their feet in conjunction with the construct of lightning._

Whilst it was definitely not normal for a ninja, let alone a Jonin to talk about a jutsu so detailed in a fight, Kakashi had a reason for doing this. It was this which was an indirect form of training for Sakura and Naruto.

_Knowing the easiest way to destroy a lightning jutsu of this kind was to kind as it only be stopped once it came into contact with its prey, Kakko did some hand seals of his own,_

_It was then that his unmistakeable voice to Kakashi, called out the name of the jutsu that he was just about to use. _

_Quickly forming out of the ground just in front of where he was standing at, there was a boulder as big as two metres in diameter in front of him which started to spin rapidly in the direction of Kakashi's lightning hound._

_Since Kakko had made the jutsu so late that he had no chance to manoeuvre his lightning hound away from the rapidly approaching boulder, Kakashi watched as the two caused a big explosion resulting in pieces of rock flying in random directions._

_As he was known as the best ninjutsu practitioner below the Hokage, Kakashi immediately followed up the blast of lightning with the Uchiha trademark ninjutsu. He wanted it to feel as if Obito was right there with him._

"_**Katon: Hōsenka no Jutsu (Fire Release: Phoenix Sage Fire Jutsu)**__" The silver haired Jonin from Konoha called out as fire came roaring from his mouth at his target being the Iwa Jonin._

This was finally the time that one of the two awoken genin questioned their sensei as to what the jutsu that he used was like. "Hey sensei, what's the jutsu you just used like cause the description wasn't that good so that we couldn't picture it in our heads." Sakura said to her sensei to which Kakashi nodded and gave a Kakashi trade mark eye smile.

Eye smiling to his students, Kakashi spoke up. "Just picture it like this, you know the fire jutsu that Sasuke knows right?" Kakashi asked to which both Naruto and Sakura nodded because they had indeed seen the jutsu. "Well it's just like that except of making one big large fireball, you make multiple, smaller fireballs usually around about 5 or so." Kakashi explained to his students who nodded and let their sensei go back to his story about how he beat an A-ranked ninja.

_Shocked because he didn't see the five small fireballs coming at him until it was too late, Kakko didn't have enough time to dodge all of the blasts of fire that were coming at him. Despite managing to dodge four out of the five compact fireballs, the brown haired man was not able to dodge the final one as it caught on the sleeve of the shirt that was underneath his chunin flak jacket._

_What made it even worse for the Iwa Jonin was that whenever Kakashi used a Katon ninjutsu, it would heat the pieces of metal underneath his forearms._

_stemming from the hit he had received earlier, Kakko released another Doton jutsu back at Kakashi Hatake. "__**Doton: Doryudan no Jutsu (Earth Release: Earth Dragon Bullet Jutsu)**__" Kakko called out as he held his hands in the final hand sign as a head of a dragon rose out of the ground and started firing chakra enhanced balls of mud at Kakashi._

"This was one part of the jutsu that the chunin combined when he made the dragon rise out of the ground and shot those balls of mud at us." Naruto commented as he hoped to tell their sensei how their battle went. The blonde jinchuuriki was doing his best to extend the same amount of courtesy to his sensei as he knew it was the right thing to do.

This brought curious ire to Kakashi as he wondered what the other jutsu was that someone managed to combine with the **Doton: Doryudan no Jutsu (Earth Release: Earth Dragon Bullet Jutsu) **and he wondered what the final product of the jutsu would be.

_Thanks to his superior speed, Kakashi was able to dodge the incoming attacks._

_Angered in how he was not able to dodge a jutsu of similar description and yet his opponent could, Kakko started doing some other hand seals as he wanted to use the foundation from the head of the mud dragon and make a new, stronger jutsu._

"_**Doton: Dosenkiryu no Jutsu (Earth Release: Earth and Stone Dragon Jutsu)" **__Kakko called out as the mud that was remaining from the previous jutsu to reduce the amount of chakra that the current attack required._

_Kakashi noted that he detected a little bit of aggravation in the tone coming from his enemy. This told the Konoha Jonin that maybe the age of Kakko was getting to the Iwa Jonin a bit. It could have possibly been making his chakra reserves just that little bit smaller which was enough of an advantage for Kakashi to capitalize on._

_Not expecting the jutsu to explode only two or so metres away from his body, Kakashi was not properly prepared this time around to dodge the incoming attack. When the Doton jutsu exploded the silver haired Jonin managed to dodge all of the attacks that were coming at him in positions that would have hit vital spots._

_Sadly for Kakashi, he was not able to either deflect all of the incoming rocks and stones. The elite Jonin unfortunately got hit in the arm and it caused the sedimentary rock to be lodged into his skin. Thankfully for Kakashi, with the angle his body was in, plus gravity, the rock fell out of his body, limiting the chance of their being an infection. _"Ahhhh sensei, Are you okay? That attack sounded like it must've hurt a lot." Sakura worriedly stated as she was quite ashamed about the fact that all of her attention had been directed at Naruto and Sasuke. During this time she never even bothered to ask her sensei whether or not he was hurt.

Naruto too felt guilty as well as he along with Sakura as he did not ask Kakashi-sensei whether or not he was hurt. Luckily for him and Sakura though, Kakashi did not seem to mind the fact.

"Don't worry about it, I just used some bandages before I came over to help you three, I pulled out some bandages which stopped the blood flow so I'll be alright until we get to the hospital. It's no big deal so you don't need to worry" Kakashi said as he dispelled all of the fears that his team had just had.

_Hissing in pain that was coming from his right outer bicep, Kakashi decided at that moment, that the brown haired man had to go down because he couldn't let the battle continue on much longer. This was because the lives of his genin students were on the line. He definitely wasn't the type of person that was willing to risk the lives of innocent children. _

_Quickly forming a plan that would finish Kakko off once and for all, Kakashi put that plan into motion Kakashi engaged Kakko once again in a taijutsu battle. Using his superior speed to a great deal, Kakashi got in close to Kakko who immediately sent some chakra into his forearm guards which brought the blades down into a position where they would help him._

_Purposefully allowing himself to get hit, Kakashi faked getting hurt worse than what he actually was so that he could give a false sense of confidence to Kakko to which he knew that the man would start gloating._

_That he did, once he saw Kakashi used two shunshins, one after another, he knew that he had hurt Kakashi quite badly with the cut to the thigh. "Hahaha, are you delirious? Did you not see that I'm much better than you in the close ranged combat Kakashi? Have you not seen that I'm easily winning this battle? It seems that your bingo book registration is much overrated if this is the extent of your prowess as a ninja." The man snidely stated as he was trying to get a rise out of his opponent to get him to do another foolish thing yet again._

_What the man did not realise was that Kakashi already had all that he needed to set up for the finishing blow with that being his __**Chidori (One Thousand Birds). **_

It was then that one Sakura Haruno decided to ask their sensei for what would be the last time while he was retelling the story. That was to ask what the jutsu that her sensei was going to use to finish off his opponent.

"Kakashi-sensei, what's a **Chidori** **(One Thousand Birds)**?" The pink haired girl asked with the curiosity which would normally be coming from the mouth of her blonde female friend who was the heiress to the Yamanaka clan.

Giving a look that did not give any emotion away at all, he spoke answering the question of Sakura. "Well it's a lightning jutsu that is strong enough to pierce practically anything, it's even been said that it has been known to cut lightning in half by the way it pierces the intended target." Kakashi said as he didn't really feel like explaining in detail what it was mainly used for.

_With finishing the battle on the forefront of his mind, the silver haired Jonin pulled out a rolled up scroll from one of the pockets in his Jonin flak jacket and unrolled it. As he did this, he smeared the blood onto the paper before channelling some chakra into said paper._

_Seeing the jutsu that Kakashi had just used made Kakko on edge, he had no idea what the type of jutsu Kakashi had just used but he knew that it couldn't be good and it was then that he realised that Kakashi had purposefully allowed him to get some of his blood onto his body, it must have been some type of summoning jutsu!_

_All the thinking of what Kakashi had just done was not the right thing for him to be doing because, at the current time, he should have been preparing himself for whatever it was that Kakashi's jutsu was going to do._

_This would be Kakko's final mistake as a shinobi because the ground started shaking from beneath him. It took too long for him to realise what was going on and there was even less time for him to react and get out of the way. _

_Coming out of the ground at a fast speed, there was a pack of six dogs all who had their teeth jammed into the body of one brown haired Jonin from Iwa. It was no surprise that Kakko let out a large and very vocal grunt as he showed just how much he liked being immobilized by some large dogs. The biggest one being as big as a human and wider than a normal human when it stood on its hind legs, it was certainly nothing that you would want to mess with._

_Being the nice type of guy that he was, Kakashi thought that it was prudent that he told his enemy the jutsu that signalled his death. With a smile on his face that was only visible via his eye, Kakashi started speaking to the man that was just about to die._

"_Just to let you know, that jutsu was the __**Fuinjutsu: Kuchiyose: Doton: Tsuiga no Jutsu (Sealing Arts: Summoning: Earth Release: Tracking Fang Jutsu)**__ and just to let you know, you never had a chance of winning this battle. I purposely let you get a hit on me so that my dogs could track the scent." Kakashi said as he went through the three most familiar hand seals to him as his hand started to crackle to life as there was a surge of electricity surrounding his hand. This was the jutsu that would end the life of the Iwa Jonin._

_Thanks to his ninja dogs being able to hold down Kakko, it meant that Kakashi didn't need his vision enhancer to combat the effects of the __**Chidori (One Thousand Birds)**_

It was then that Naruto decided to be the one who would ask his sensei a question as he wanted to know whether or not the jutsu was one that was worth learning. "Sensei, what do you mean how the jutsu impairs your vision? If it's so bad, then why do you use it and what is it that makes it so bad for your eyes?" Naruto question to his sensei and Sakura was eagerly listening as she wanted to know about it because it sounded very flashy by the way her sensei had described it. It sounded like something that Naruto and Sasuke-kun would love to have in their bag of tricks.

"Well the main reason as to why I use it even though there are a few drawbacks is because of the fact that it's a jutsu that I've created from scratch." This statement alone made Naruto and Sakura take in their sensei in a new light. The

"One of the other reasons is that since it's a jutsu that I made up on my own, I felt obligated to use it quite a bit and ever since then it has grown over time so much so that it feels like the normal jutsu whenever the opportunity arises." Kakashi said to his students who nodded although they did not really understand the concept behind what they were saying. That would only happen once they had been on quite a lot of missions and gained experience.

"The final reason is because since I used the **Fuinjutsu: Kuchiyose: Doton: Tsuiga no Jutsu (Sealing Arts: Summoning: Earth Release: Tracking Fang Jutsu)** which immobilized him so that he had no chance of escaping the **Chidori (One Thousand Birds.)**" Kakashi explained to his two conscious students who nodded at what he was saying.

"Now, about the jutsu, the reason as to why it causes you to have tunnel vision is because of the sparks of lightning coming off. That and also because it is a very bright jutsu. This in turn becomes a massive distraction when it comes to aiming with the technique. This means that it is quite an easy jutsu for the enemy to counter attack and deal a lethal blow since you can't see properly." As soon as Kakashi finished saying what he was saying, it was as if light bulbs went off inside the heads of the pink haired girl and the blonde haired boy as they figured out what their sensei meant.

Deciding that it was best that he didn't go into detail about how he killed the man, Kakashi skipped that part and got onto the next part of the story. "And it was after that that I came over to see your battle." Kakashi said with an eye smile which Sakura was thankful for because her sensei had saved her life.

Kakashi decided to let his students know of the incoming chakra signatures so that they wouldn't panic and get into fighting positions, especially Naruto with his broken leg.

"There are three incoming chakra signatures but you don't need to worry." Kakashi quickly stated as he saw the tensing in both of his students who visibly relaxed when their sensei told them that they were not showing signs of hostility.

It was almost half a second later that there were three figures who had dropped down from the tree line and bowed their heads towards Kakashi as if he was the Hokage. "We are deeply sorry Kakashi-sama for not getting to your battle so that we could help out, we only heard about it when we felt that final chakra spike and heard a faint noise in the distance." The leader of the three chunin said as he bowed to the silver haired man.

"Maa, that's alright. Now my students are injured from their first battle so we need to take them to your hospital so that Naruto here" at this point in the conversation, Kakashi pointed to the orange wearing genin beside him which gained the attention of the chunin from the land of grass "can have his broken leg looked at, reset into place and then get a cast put on it." Kakashi said so that his sensei's son could get the treatment he needed.

Nodding at the statement from Kakashi, two of the three chunin from Kusa, moved over to Naruto and took both of his arms and wrapped them over their respective shoulder so that they could carry Naruto and move at a faster pace.

Seeing the questioning gaze given to him by the leader of the group which slowly turned curious when he looked at Sasuke, getting the hint, Kakashi started speaking up to ease the curiosity the man was feeling as he was wondering what was wrong with raven haired Uchiha.

"Oh, you don't need to worry about Sasuke here" Kakashi directed an eye glance at his student who was sleeping on his shoulder. "He's just suffering from chakra exhaustion so a good night sleep and quite a lot of food and he'll be all good." The silver haired Jonin stated which earned a sigh of relief from the chunin. He didn't know what he would have done had he been dead or critically injured.

**Time skip**

Once the team of 6 albeit with one incapacitated, got through the gates of the hidden village in the land of grass, they had to go their separate ways because they each had their own agendas of things to do.

Kakashi had gotten the message from the leading chunin that their leader would like to meet with him and discuss all of the necessities that came with having a foreign diplomat in their home village.

This meant that the 28 year old Jonin from Konohagakure could not go to the hospital to be there for Naruto in case he needed it. This also meant though that someone would have to take Sasuke back to the hotel where they would be staying at so that he could get some decent rest.

Immediately once this became apparent to the resident pink haired genin Sakura Haruno, she immediately volunteered to take Sasuke to their room so that she could 'look after' him. Kakashi suspected though that she may try and forcibly take Sasuke's first kiss. Little did he know about the interaction with Naruto and Sasuke on the day of when the teams were announced.

So this left Naruto to go to the hospital all by himself. He didn't really count the two chunin who were carrying him there. Despite being grateful for them taking him to the hospital, he knew they were doing it because it was an order which meant that they wouldn't do it to him unless he was a Kusagakure ninja or it was war time and the alliance kicked into gear.

Once arriving at the foyer of the hospital, the two chunin told the receptionist what had happened to Naruto and she promptly called for a medical ninja to come and heal his leg.

Sitting down in the waiting room, it was not long until there were two people who came out to greet Naruto. The first of them was the usual description for what Naruto had of what a doctor / medical ninja looked like with his scrubs

The second person was someone that Naruto definitely did not expect for someone to look like if they were a doctor. Now that he thought about it, she looked quite young to be a doctor; she only looked just a little bit older than what he was.

The girl was wearing a pair of black shinobi sandals which was what Naruto could call the only normal part of her choice in clothing. Admittedly, this was only compared to what he could gather what Ino, Sakura and all of the other girls at the academy chose to wear; it was even different from that massive baggy jacket that Hinata wore.

This girl was wearing a full length mesh body suit that was underneath a skirt which a father would deem appropriate for his teenage daughter to wear. The top half of her body though was not as covered as what a father would like.

She had a tan polo button up t-shirt that had a dark brown where stripe that went the whole way around from her breast line. Thankfully for her father's sake that the top was covering everything to make her look somewhat respectable in the eyes of civilian parents.

To top off all of the clothing that Naruto found unique on a girl his age, it was nothing compared to what her head looked like. Bright red hair that went all the way down to her where he belly button was. This was combined with vibrant red eyes that the girl had which he thought were thoroughly entrancing. All of this was complimented by the black glasses that framed the girl's face and made her someone who despite having a different type of style but nonetheless one that he still found her attractive.

It was then that he was brought out of his revere by the older, male doctor. "Now young man, we have a proposition for you." This instantly grabbed the full attention of Naruto as he wanted to know what was going on.

Seeing the change in Naruto's posture, the doctor continued on speaking. "We are in the process of training our future doctors and they need some practical lessons when it comes to healing. Since your injury is not that technical when it comes to fixing it, we have an offer for you.

You have two options. The first one is that we get another one of our doctors heal you which would cost you what the normal price would be." The doctor said as he gave Naruto enough time to digest what he was saying.

"Or we could allow Karin-chan here to do it for you at a cheaper price since she isn't as qualified and allow her to gain experience in treating people. Just to be clear on some things though, Karin-chan here has already performed under the observation of one of our already qualified doctors so that you can have the full privacy in knowing that Karin will be the only person with the access to this information just like you would feel with another medical ninja." The chief of medicine stated to Naruto who just went into a thought process to think things through.

_Now I know that since this is Kusa and not Konoha, I know that they will not treat me bad like Konoha did but there is just something about that girl that tells me that I can trust her. Plus, I would feel guilty for not letting her get better at trying to help people so I guess that I've made up my decision._

With his decision made, Naruto gave her a polite smile, one which managed to get one in return from Karin. _What's happening to me, I usually don't fall for boys, especially ones that wear such ugly clothes._

Once the two went away and into their own room so that Naruto could have his leg checked on, the red haired girl started speaking to Naruto. "Well since the receptionist said that you have a broken leg, you must be really strong to not show any signs of pain from the injury." Karin said as she kept her head focused on the clip board in her hands.

Before when Naruto was nowhere near as smart as what he was now, he would have grinned like an idiot and bragged to the cows came home about how tough and how strong he was, now though with the little bit of humiliation in realising how much further there was for him to improve as a shinobi compared to how little he actually knew made Naruto be honest about something like this.

"Sorry about that, my sensei used some jutsu on my leg so that I can't feel any pain coming from it. He also made it so that I can't move my leg either, so I guess you know what he did?" Naruto questioned to his first ever experience with a doctor.

Since she was someone around his age, it made him feel much more comfortable when it came to discussing what his body was like, the fact that since she was from Kusa and he was from Konoha only intensified the safe feeling when it came to discussing his medical history. He knew that he would never see her again.

"Well I have to say that I'm impressed." This was something that Naruto was not expecting. Admittedly, he expected her to say that he should have taken the pain like a man and not have had his sensei use the jutsu on him.

"Out of all of the boys in the academy class that I graduated from, I bet none of them would have had the balls to admit to having some sort of painkiller. They would have boasted about how strong they were for dealing with the pain," when Naruto heard the words coming from Karin's mouth made Naruto instantly think of Kiba and how he would do the exact same thing. This made Naruto happy because if there was one trait that he prided himself on it was honesty.

Placing the clipboard down on the table beside her, she walked over to Naruto making him a bit uncomfortable. This was something that made her happy because she had never had the ability to make a guy uncomfortable in her presence. Every other guy she knew just looked at her in a platonic way. She knew that she didn't have any good traits that a man would look for in a woman.

"Now… Naruto I need you to take off your pants or at least roll them up and keep them there so I can carefully take off your shinobi sandal." The glasses wearing girl quickly amended as she saw the outrageous look on Naruto's face.

Once that was done, the glasses wearing girl had her first look at Naruto's broken ankle she saw that Naruto had gotten the best possible result when it came to it healing the injury. Since it was a clean break, it meant that all Karin had to do for the injury was to use some medical ninjutsu and place the two broken bones together so that they could mend themselves back together and then place a cast on it and then it was done.

"Now Naruto, you have managed to get the best possible break in terms of it being a break that doesn't take that long to heal since all you have to heal is the two bones mending back into one. Normally when someone breaks an ankle the two bones will dig into your ligaments and tendons which are the parts that allow you to move your leg and cause you a lot more pain. It would also take a lot longer to heal." Karin stated as she was using a formal tone when discussing what is wrong with a patient.

This was something that made Naruto really happy as he would hold his team back for an extended period of time. "Now there are two types of casts that you can get placed on your ankle. One is made out of plastic which can't get wet so that means that it would be really hard to have a shower with it on, not to mention that it is much heavier." Karin said as she was trying to use what the doctor said in getting them to always go for the best cover as it gives us more money.

The other one is a cast that is made out of fibreglass. This means that you can walk around much easier, get to sleep quicker and stay asleep unlike the other cast which would make you wake up in pain.

It also means that you can get the cast wet so that means that you can have a shower." It was at this point that Karin finally took in Naruto's clothes and used this to her advantage. "Finally, the best part about the fibreglass casts is that they can come in whatever colour you want." Karin said to Naruto in trying to get him to pay for the more expensive cast. "You could even get it as Orange haha!" Karin said, finishing off with a joke.

Naruto knew what she was trying to do and was silently impressed as it was a trait that the snake clan would heavily use and it was then that a saying that he came to the forefront of his mind. _You give someone an inch and they will stretch it for a mile._

"Unfortunately the cost of the cast is $1,250 which is the bad part." The vibrant red haired girl winced as she said this because she knew that it was a lot of money.

Money. That was the second reason as to why she became a medical ninja and was currently trying to gain a certified medical licence. With a doctor being a job that was high in demand, especially a medical ninja was a field that you could make a substantial amount of money in if you were good at your job.

With Naruto being oblivious to all of this, he just decided to pay for the premier cast. Sighing, Naruto gave the all clear go ahead to place fibreglass cast on his leg. It was thanks to the Kyubi that all of the swelling that surrounded the leg of Naruto had gone down to the point that it would be possible for him to have a cast put on his ankle the day that it was broken.

"So… what colour would you want to have your cast Naruto? Orange…?" Karin somehow managed to say with a dry tone and yet chuckled after as soon as she said it. Naruto for his part was embarrassed with what Karin was saying. He knew his clothes weren't the greatest, heck they weren't even great in Naruto's mind but he wouldn't be subjected to having to buy all of his clothes from Konoha since they would always over price things.

Getting out of his revere about reminiscing about darker days for himself, Naruto answered the question that Karin had given him. "No, I think that I will have the cast in a red colour." Naruto replied to Karin in an equally dry tone hoping to win the conversation that they were having.

With a small smile that hardly ever found the way onto her face since she didn't have many friends as a kid, Karin liked the back and forth between the two.

After the placing the cast and Naruto having to wait 2 hours for it to be fully ready , Naruto was now ready to go

"Hey, Karin-chan" Normally, Naruto wouldn't use the –chan suffix on a girl because he believed that you had to get to know a girl before using it but he decided that it would help his chances of getting what he wanted so he decided on using it this one time.

It was something that did indeed something that got the girl's attention. Nobody apart from her father ever used the term of endearment on her. This was why she had allowed Naruto to get whatever it was that he wanted.

"Would it be possible for you to give me a full medical check? I am an orphan and I haven't had one in a while so I would like to know what is going on inside my body," Naruto asked while flashing the smile that she had seen when he first met her, one that she would forever cherish seeing as time went on.

Grumbling, because she knew what she was about to say was something that would make both her and Naruto very uncomfortable but she also knew that it was something that she had to do if she wanted to become a good doctor. "Fine, but I'm going to need you to take off ALL of your clothes for that to happen as I need to go over all parts of your body." The red haired girl stated with a massive blush covering her whole face.

Naruto wasn't any different as he too had his whole face red from embarrassment which was unlike the tan complexion that he usually wore.

In Naruto's mind it was either do this with someone from his village which was something that he did not want to happen or do it with someone else who would give him honest and true answers. The fact that she was from a different village made it all the better because he had hopes that he would never have to see her again and remember the embarrassing moment that he was about to get himself into.

Grumbling, Naruto finally spoke after a bit of time "Fine, can we just get this over as soon as possible because I know this is going to be heaps awkward and judging by the blush on your face, I'm guessing that you feel the exact same way?" Naruto questioned to the tan shirt wearing girl who only just nodded as she was too nervous to speak. She didn't trust herself enough to speak.

The first piece of clothing that Naruto took off was his orange jacket. This was nothing that either Naruto or Karin were uncomfortable seeing as Karin had seen enough from what the boys at the academy showed. Naruto was fine as well as when he was growing up; around about the 7-9 age brackets he wore t-shirts all the time.

The next bit of clothing that Naruto removed however was one that he was highly sensitive about. This was the black t-shirt underneath the orange jumpsuit. Naruto didn't have a problem with girls seeing his upper body without any clothes on specifically. He had a problem with anyone and everyone seeing him without a top on. It didn't matter if it was Iruka, Ayame or even the Sandaime Hokage. He didn't want ANYONE to see his body.

This was because it showed just how different Naruto was from all of the other kids. For Naruto, whenever he saw a kid having to take off their tops, it just brought painful memories in how they were not classified as being an anorexic like he was.

The case of Naruto's anorexia was because of the fact that he wasn't able to buy the quality food that children needed when they were in their developmental stages of life. Even when he did get his hands on vegetables and other good things for his body like milk, they were usually going off and not fit for consumption for the general populace.

This meant that the stall and shop owners felt that these types of food were perfect for the resident jinchuuriki to consume under the guise of the food being 'fresh' and good for consumption. Due to getting sick from the 'fresh' food, Naruto turned away from anything that wasn't ramen.

Had it not been for the giant fox that Naruto had sealed inside of his body, then the Uzumaki clan heir would have died long ago from malnutrition. Said fox was drawing out all of the possible nutrients coming from the food that Naruto was eating and making sure that his container had the best chance at surviving.

This was why Karin was shocked when she saw that Naruto was practically made up of skin and bone with no traces of muscle or even fat.

Wanting to hide himself as much as possible from the gaze coming from Karin, Naruto quickly dropped his pants, just only managing to get the offending pants over the hardening cast that was on his leg.

Irritated by the look that Karin was giving him, Naruto said in a tone that was something that he was trying not to use, that was emotions when talking and having them dictate what you say. "Can we get on with the examination and stop staring at my body." Naruto said in a tone that was a bit harsh and he somewhat regretted using on Karin.

Taken back by what Naruto said because from all of the other conversations that the two had shared, he was a boy who was very polite. Hearing the tone that Naruto used on her was something that made Karin realise that she had been staring at him and it made her feel guilty.

"Right, sorry about that, now can you please lie on the bed. It doesn't matter what position you lie in so you can choose either your back or your stomach." Karin said to which Naruto nodded and went over to the sheet covered bed and lied on his stomach on it so that Karin would not have the chance to possibly see the jinchuuriki seal on his stomach That would only lead to questions he wasn't willing to answer.

Getting down to what she was being paid to do, Karin placed her hands on the base of Naruto's spine and used the **Ijutsu: Shindan no Jutsu (Medical Jutsu: Diagnostic Jutsu.)**

It was not until ten minutes later that Karin took her hands off the base of Naruto's spine for the last time as she had finished up doing what she needed to do with Naruto.

"Alright Naruto, you can now get changed back into your clothes and can you wait a little bit because there are some serious things that we need to go over." Karin said in a serious tone which made Naruto gulp as he both wanted to know what was wrong so that he could fix them but also because he didn't want to hear how bad it actually was.

"There is one question that I want you to answer truthfully Naruto. That is what is it that you eat because it has affected your growth and it is the sole reason as to why you are so short for your age." Karin said as she knew that the instant that it came out of her mouth she had hit a sore spot on Naruto as he knew that he was short for his age.

Seeing this as the first real chance for him to learn about medicine on a small scale, it meant that he had to be honest to Karin which was something that he did not mind, as long as it got him in the results that he wanted.

"Well I mainly eat ramen and just drink water." Naruto said as he shifted a bit at the gaze that Karin gave him.

It was after some time that the red headed girl responded with not much that Naruto could go by in terms of judging what she was thinking. "I see" was all that Karin said which somehow made it worse for the resident jinchuuriki.

"Well I can tell from just that where a lot of your problems lie. I won't lie; this is some very really bad." Karin indicated as she held up the file of Naruto's body and how it worked.

"Practically everything in here is related to one underlying problem Naruto." Kari stated as she looked directly at Naruto who shifted at her gaze as he knew that it must be something very bad.

It was then that Karin had a smile on her face as she said the next thing. "This also means though that it will be fairly easy for you to change and have a high chance of no permanent damage." Karin stated in a grave tone as she didn't want to see someone, no matter who they were (within reason of course) suffer needlessly.

This made Naruto nervous and worried about what he had done wrong for his whole life that made him have such a fucked up medical record? Hesitant but ploughing on ahead, Naruto questioned Karin on what he was actually suffering from.

Nodding at the question that Naruto had given her, she started speaking about what Naruto had been suffering from. "Well the first and most obvious thing that you are suffering from anorexia.

The next thing is that it's no wonder in how you broke your ankle so easily. Since you aren't getting enough nutrients into your body, it means that all of the things like your muscles and bones are grossly underdeveloped for a boy of your age. Since you don't have enough calcium inside your bones, it means that they are brittle and prone to snapping at a much lower amount of." Karin stated as she finished up with all of the bad things that she could find inside his body.

"That's it when it comes to all of the bad things though but they are very bad things to have so don't think that you are lucky. If you don't start eating a proper diet then you will surely have a very hard becoming even a somewhat decent ninja because of how poor your body is compared to what it needs to be so that it can handle the harsh lifestyle that we shinobi have to live by." Karin repeatedly insisted because it was something that was not tolerable for someone of his age. With all of the problems that Naruto was having, it was not that hard for her to come to the realisation that there was an underlying problem to all of this.

"Just to let you know Naruto that there are probably more problems going on inside your body since you don't eat and drink enough good quality food but since I'm only new, I don't have that much experience in detecting issues."

This only made Naruto feel worse about what he was going through. It made the glasses wearing girl guilty to a certain extent though she knew that it had to be done so that the blonde haired boy would not suffer from any permanent side effects.

While it was something that made Naruto feel even more terrible than what he was feeling before, it also gave him even more to eat healthier and protect his body.

"That's all of the bad things happening inside your body, so how about we talk about the good things you've got going for you alright?" the red eyed girl asked Naruto who nodded as he wanted to know what things he could exploit in his training.

"Your body is made up differently compared to that of the average human." The way that Karin said _average human_ made him wince horribly although luckily for him it was only internally so that Karin would not have to know what Naruto had to deal with on a constant basis.

"The most major difference between yours and someone else's body is that of your muscle structure. It seems to me that your muscle structure is a lot more compact and denser to what normal humans have, if I would have to guess it would be something akin to a bloodline or something along those lines." Karin said to which Naruto nodded about the bloodline suggestion even though he had a fairly good guess himself to what the cause of it was.

It was then that Naruto had a question that he needed answering. "What does it mean when you say my muscles are denser, what does that mean for me compared to say you?" Naruto said this because he wanted to know if there was supposed to be a special way for him to train as a shinobi.

Seeing that Naruto had no idea what she was talking about, she decided to dumb it down so that Naruto would be able to understand what she was saying. "What I mean is, say a muscle can make a certain amount of force right, this force is used to move the area of the body to a location that the brain tells it to.

You can pack more force into your muscles per square centimetre compared to how much force my muscles could contain in the same amount of size." This explanation was much better for Naruto as he got what she was saying; Karin was saying that he got more power out of his muscles compared to someone who had the same amount as him.

_I guess there are some benefits for having the fox sealed inside of me. _Naruto mused to himself because he was giddy to get the full value out of his muscles so that he could be the best ninja he could possibly be. The thing that shook Naruto out of his internal musings about the Kyubi was the voice of Karin when she started talking about something else his body good his body was doing.

That was the joints of his body. "Your body is much more flexible compared to what other people are. With this flexibility, you might be able to evade some attacks where other people would not have been able to dodge." This was another thing that made Naruto excited as it gave him some new training to do as he was determined to find the limits to this newfound flexibility.

"The final thing that your body is doing better than anyone else is your senses." Karin stated to Naruto who just looked at her with a curious eyebrow being razed at her stating that Naruto didn't know what she was talking about.

Sighing, Karin had to dumb down what she was saying for Naruto. "You know… your senses, stuff like hearing, taste, sight, smell and feel." It was then that Naruto nodded and gave her a smile that made her defences soften up inside.

"Your vision is beyond exemplary it is equal to what the quality of vision that people who have Dojutsu's but do not have the Kekkai Genkai activated." Karin said to which Naruto gave her a look which stated that he thought that everyone had vision just as good as what he did.

"The same goes for your hearing, smell and taste. While not being as good as an Inuzuka clan member, they are still much better than what other people would kill to have." Naruto tried to remember these things so that he could train in them so that he could take full advantage of what his body was and use it effectively in battle.

"Despite your sense of feel being nowhere near as good as all of your other senses, it is still good and it's nothing to sneeze at." Karin stated as she finished the report on what was happening inside Naruto's body.

Once the red eyed girl and Naruto had started to have a bit of a pause in their conversation, she immediately took the time to have a look at Naruto's cast and see whether or not it was ready for Naruto to walk around on, albeit it with a pair of crutches.

Indeed it was ready for Naruto to go about his way but not before Karin had called for her teacher to come in and have a look. She had to get him to sign off saying that her workmanship was at the industry standard.

With a check of the leg done by the chief of medicine, the man gave Naruto the all clear for him to move around.

Being the gentlemen he was in training, Naruto took one last final chance to say goodbye the proper way, well what he thought the proper way was to Karin. Once getting the pair of crutches off of the receptionist which he would have to give back when he went back to Konoha_, _Naruto made one last final comment to Karin before leaving.

"Thank you for the time that we spent together Karin. I am grateful for choosing to have you as the doctor rather than someone else." And with that said, Naruto gently grabbed the hand of the red eyed girl and gave it a quick chaste kiss Before Karin could say something, Naruto turned around and left with a massive blush on his face.

What Naruto did not see was the blushing mess that was the red haired girl who stammered to say something before Naruto could leave, sadly that was not the case, but as soon as Naruto left her side, Karin did manage to reply, even though she knew that the blonde haired boy would not be able to hear what she was saying.

"Thank you and I hope to see you again Naruto…-kun." Karin said in a daze before she had to turn around so that she could go back to the work that her sensei had installed for her.


	5. There's time to change

**The day after Naruto got the cast**

Despite Naruto having a fibreglass cast on his leg, he still had quite a bit of irritation when it came to the leg. Due to the fact that he had to keep it elevated all the time, he had to sit still for long periods of time.

Unfortunately due to the ADD that he suffered from thanks to the Kyubi's chakra in his system, it only made the situation that Naruto was currently in even worse.

At least with all the time sitting down, Naruto was able to think about the information that Karin gave him. Thanks to the red haired girl opening his on how severe the situation was, Naruto knew that he had to do to get his health on track.

Thanks to using the Henge, Naruto knew that he would be able to work around one of the setbacks. It might not be able to solve all of his problems when it came to his health but it would definitely go a long way to mending most of them.

For this though, Naruto had to get help on what the best things for him to eat were and there was only one person who he could think of to do this with. That person was none other than the red haired girl named Karin and Naruto had a brilliant idea as to how he could get her to help with him on all of this. He could take her out on a date and hopefully get her to help him with what he should be doing.

if someone could now see the blonde boy known as Naruto Uzumaki, they would see the crippled boy hobbling on his way to the hospital. As Naruto's luck would have it, just as he was entering the establishment of people who constantly saved the lives of others, Naruto saw the red eyed beauty finishing up her shift.

It was then that the voice of Naruto broke her concentration. "Hey Karin-chan, there is something that I want to ask you, is it alright if we can talk for a little bit outside if it is not that much of a trouble to you?" Naruto politely questioned to the red haired girl who was shocked.

She thought that as soon as Naruto had the cast put on his leg, he would just go and spend all of the time that he was in Kusa with his teammates. She didn't expect to see the bright yellow mop of hair ever again but if she was honest with herself, she was happy to see the politely smiling boy once again.

Admittedly, she thought that Naruto would only be polite when he was her patient. After that she presumed he would be just as rude as all of the other boys that she had the _pleasure _of knowing.

Normally, Karin would have been apprehensive of this but because Naruto was so nice and he was injured, she didn't feel as if she had to keep her guard up anywhere near as much.

Not really sure how he should word this, Naruto tried the honest but blunt approach when it came to getting what he wanted. "Karin-chan, would it be possible if the two of us could go out on a date?" Naruto questioned as he hoped that she would say yes.

Said girl was shocked; why would someone, let alone someone from another village want to go out with her when none of the boys that she went to the academy with would even spend any time of day with her? While all of these thoughts were going on in her head, she forgot that she was in the presence of another.

Naruto, seeing the time it was taking Karin to answer, Naruto panicked as he was also having self-confidence issues when it came to asking a girl out. His previous efforts with Sakura certainly helped this but it wasn't as if he was one of those people who were too scared to ask. He knew that he'd never get a girlfriend if he was too scared to ask one out.

"Karin-chan, I don't expect that this to be a full blown relationship between the two of us. I just thought that we both could get some experience when it comes to dating under our belt so that if we ever want to date someone that a relationship could happen with, we'd at least have some experience beforehand so that we don't mess it up." these words from Naruto brought Karin out of her revere and it was this time that Karin finally found her voice preparing a question that had been on her mind ever since he asked her for a date.

"Why me? I mean there are a lot of other girls out there who are prettier than me, so why did you chose me, or is it just because that I'm just the first girl that you've come across in Kusa?" she said with a hint of bitterness in her voice. She did not like it how other girls got all of the attention from the boys when she got none at all.

Naruto was affronted at the tone that she was using when she described herself to him. He thought the total opposite because he thought that she was beautiful in her own right. If only every girl in the world used this tactic on men to be their self esteem generator.

"While it is true that you are the first girl that I have met in Kusa…" it was at this point that the hopes of Karin went down. She knew that had Naruto found another girl from around here, he would have chosen them instead.

"But I do not see how you could possibly think that you are not pretty." At this point a blush appeared on Naruto's face but it did not stop him from speaking his mind. "You have a great smile and I don't think you realise just how amazing your hair is." Naruto stated to the said red eyed and red haired girl who blushed up a storm because no one had ever said that to her apart from her father.

"You don't have the appeal of a girl… that would be classified as a one night stand, which is good" Naruto stated as he saw the slowly dejected look that was forming on her face and he tried to make amends with what he was saying.

"You have the looks of what a guy would look for if they wanted a serious relationship. This is something that I like in a girl because I don't want to be with a girl just for the sake of having sex. I want a girl that would love to be around you no matter what you looked like." This statement was directed more to himself than Karin as Naruto wanted to find a girl with all these qualities. After the broken home that he came from, he wanted nothing more than the perfect family with a wife, two or more kids and a white picket fence.

"You may not be the prettiest girl to ever walk the continent but you have a type of beauty in which you do not have to try and be beautiful and yet you still are." Naruto said as he finished the speech which resulted in the red headed girl leaping into Naruto's chest when he wasn't ready. It was lucky for the crippled boy that he managed to stay on his feet whilst supporting the frame of Karin.

Karin looked up, using the vibrant red eyes and looked into Naruto's oceanic blue ones and asked with a hesitant tone. "Do you really mean that Naruto?" Karin said with a hint of uncertainty in her voice.

Naruto, felt extremely awkward with the situation that he was in at that current time. He had never had a girl other than Ayame-neechan hug him before and he had no idea on what to do. Not having the confidence to reply, Naruto simply nodded and prayed that Karin would release the hug sometime soon. Indeed Karin did do that because she had a nervous blush on her face when she released the hug.

It was then that Naruto talked about what they would be doing for the date. "I guess we can go and have some lunch since you just finished your work and I know that if I had just finished training I'd be hungry as well." Naruto questioned to Karin who just nodded and smiled. In the mind of the red haired girl, today was going to be a day that nothing could possibly ruin.

"But first… I think that we should go to one of your shinobi clothing stores so that I can get some clothes to wear so that I don't make you look bad. I think that having a girl's opinion on the choice of clothes I buy should make me look better right?" Naruto questioned with a grin on his face as he just saw Karin giggle and nod as she did think that Naruto needed some better choice of clothing, especially if he was a ninja.

When they went into the store, Naruto was in for a sharp change of mindset because he noticed that all of the clothes that were in here were totally different to what Konoha had.

Back at _home _all of the clothes that Naruto had seen that people could buy were in the form of kimonos. In Kusa though, it was a whole different kettle of fish because they had embraced the change when it came to the fashion that a lot of Konoha had discarded thinking that it wouldn't sell at all.

"So Naruto, how much stuff do you need to buy today? By the looks of your clothing, I can guess that you need a whole new wardrobe?" Karin grinned, lightly teasing as she was finally finding out what it meant to have fun with people around her own age.

Naruto was in the same boat. He knew that Shikamaru, Choji and Kiba were not really friends to him, they were more like acquaintances when he looked back on the days he spent at the academy. Replying with a smile of his own; Naruto nodded and replied to the red haired girl. "Yes, it seems as if I do need a whole new wardrobe. Would you mind helping me out here Karin-chan?"

"Sure thing, you kind gentleman." Karin said with a giggle as she liked the way that Naruto was treating her. None of the boys at the academy had even half of the manners that Naruto seemed to have.

"So, what types of clothes would you like to wear Naruto?" Karin stated as she started imagining Naruto in all different types of clothes, wondering which ones would look the best on him. It took Naruto a while to decide what he wanted to wear.

With that in mind, the red headed girl went around to the shelves and pulled off some clothes so that Naruto could go into the store's changing rooms and try them on.

It took Naruto a few minutes to change into the clothes because of his broken leg but once that was done he called Karin over to the door. Opening the door Karin was greeted with the sight of the new and improved Naruto Uzumaki.

Standing there with only one closed toe shinobi sandal on, Karin admitted to herself that she preferred the black ones compared to the blue ones that he previously wore.

The next bit of clothing that Karin saw were pants that had a zipper down the side of each pant leg allowing Naruto an easier time putting them on thanks to his leg. It was too bad that she didn't know how quickly his leg would heal and how little time he would actually be wearing the cast.

Just like the bottom half of Naruto's body, the top half followed the same rule that Naruto had given Karin. That rule was that while they had to be functional for combat as a ninja, they also had to be slightly too big so that he could grow into them and not have to constantly buy new clothes.

Underneath the big grey jacket Naruto was wearing a red long sleeved t-shirt which was the same colour as the medical gauze tape that he had around his ankles. The idea behind it was so that he could roll up the sleeves in summer making it dual purpose.

The final piece to complete the ensemble was the changing of the headband. Due to the previous one being Iruka's, it was coming apart at the seams and had quite a few stains on it.

Giving Naruto's look the final once over, Karin commented on what was in front of her. "Wow Naruto, you look much better than what you did before. Now you don't look so bad that you'd embarrass all of the people around you." The red haired girl said with a small giggle marring her face as she looked over at Naruto.

Smiling at that as he took the positive out of the situation rather than taking the negative, Naruto spoke to Karin as they he had some other things to do before they could go out for lunch. He wanted to do that last as he wanted the date on a high instead of her just planning out what he should be eating.

Naruto had just realised by the look that he was seeing on the face of Karin, he shouldn't have asked that question. Said red haired girl had gleam in her eyes. Karin was not one of the girly girls when it came to dressing up in all different clothes to make boys get a hard on, she had other things which she got enjoyment from.

That something that took all of the red eyed girl's interest was medicine and all of the forms that it came in. This was why when Naruto asked her whether or not if she could make a meal plan for him, the glasses wearing girl took it in stride as a big challenge and one that she was going to succeed in.

It was then that Naruto's stomach grumbled as he Karin was just about to start asking about what Naruto's food preferences were. Valiantly trying to hide the blush that was forming on his face, the blonde haired boy started speaking to Karin. "Well Karin-chan, how about we go and talk this over some lunch?"

It was as the duo of genin ninjas from different villages were walking down the street that Naruto and Karin came across someone that the red haired girl would have loved to never come across.

That was the main bully that had emotionally teased. She had been picked because of the fact that she was an anomaly. She had red hair and glasses; she was different, she stood out from the crowd.

Not wanting to sound like a little whiny bitch as she had been called many 'a times in the past, Karin steeled her resolve and hoped that nothing would cause the girl's attention to focus on what she was doing with Naruto.

Sadly that was not the case as the bully had indeed seen Naruto, who she had dubbed quite cute and hanging around the nerdy social retard in Karin. Thinking of herself as a Good Samaritan that she was, the green eyed girl told herself that she should go and help Naruto out by telling him to not associate someone of the likes of Karin.

It was then that Karin gulped as she saw her bully coming over to talk with them. Naruto who had just looked at Karin for a second because he thought that she was pretty cute; when he saw the nervous and scared expression, Naruto then looked around to see what the cause of his date's sudden discomfort.

Seeing an approaching girl that looked none too different from the way that Ino held herself at the academy, Naruto instantly knew what was going on.

As soon as the girl arrived onto the scene, she spoke with a pompous attitude

"You know, that Karin-baka is a nerdy retard. Someone as cute as you shouldn't be hanging out with the likes of her, but I'll let that pass if you come and hang with me then I'm sure we can more fun than what you would do with Karin-baka." The girl said with a flirtatious smile on her face. Karin for her part was ready for the part when Naruto would blow off their date so that he could go with the prettier girl.

"Sorry" it was at this point that Naruto pulled up the pants leg to reveal the cast that was on his ankle "but with me having a broken ankle it means that I am no fun. I'm sure that when I come back to Kusa, I'll make sure to come by and visit the village whore." Naruto said all the while having a polite smile on his face.

Karin was in shock; it was as pure and as simple as that. The boy who had defended her, had previously never shown that he had a mean bone in his body she was happy as could be that someone finally took it upon themselves to ruin the ego of her tormentor. For it to be Naruto, it made it all the more special for Karin. It also made Karin like Naruto even more and she was really happy that she agreed to go out on a date with him.

The bully was stunned speechless as she had definitely not expected someone, let alone a teenage boy to stand up to her. Huffing in anger, the bully turned her head around and held it up high as she walked away, trying to hide away from the fact that her ego had been crushed by a hormonally charged boy.

On an emotional high since Naruto had told the person who had bullied her for her whole time at the academy, Karin had grabbed Naruto's hand and gave it a squeeze as her way of saying thank you.

Feeling a softer hand wrap around his own, Naruto turned away from the retreating form of the bully and looked at the red haired girl beside him. When he felt the squeeze on his hand he saw a smile appear on the face of Karin. This was all that Naruto needed to return the smile as he was having one of the happiest days of his life. He wouldn't trade today for anything.

Then came the argument as to what was for lunch. It was light hearted and the smiles on the faces of Karin and Naruto didn't disappear for a second.

In the end they had settled on a place that both Naruto and Karin had come to terms with. It was a restaurant that had been inspired by the cuisine that Kumogakure had in spades and decided to open up a shop that sold similar food.

After politely asking the waitress if they could have a booth because Naruto needed to keep his leg elevated since it would reduce the time for it to heal and the swelling that needed to go down, Naruto and Karin sat in the booth and looked down at the menu in their hands.

It was then when the water had come over to their table 5 minutes later that the couple had decided on what they wanted to eat. "So what would you like to eat miss?" the waiter questioned as she looked over at Karin.

Murmuring as she was going over the menu one last final time Karin decided on what she wanted to eat for her first date with Naruto. She wanted to pick something that was good as otherwise it would put a damper on the great day that the two had been having together. "Can I please have the satay fish soup?" Karin questioned to the waitress who nodded back at her to say that it was available. "Thanks, I will have that then." Karin stated as she looked on at Naruto to see what he was going to choose for lunch.

The blonde haired boy for his part was at a loss when it came to choosing what he wanted to eat. Since he hadn't tried that many things, he didn't know what he wanted to eat. Not wanting to look like a downy in how he knew so little about the civilian life that accompanied being a ninja, Naruto took a wild stab in the dark with his guess and hoped for the best that it would be something that he would like.

With a little bit of hesitancy in his voice that either the waiter or Karin picked up on, Naruto chose what he wanted to eat. "Can I please have the mild mutton curry." Naruto stated to the waiter who thought that like Karin, Naruto was questioning whether or not the food was on the menu. In the end she just gave a nod to which Naruto replied. "Thank you."

For the drinks, both Naruto and Karin were happy with just having water as they wanted to saviour the taste of the food that they were ordering. It was then that the two started their conversations that would last on for what seemed like a couple of minutes to the two and yet in reality they had lasted about 4 hours.

"So Karin-chan, what was it like growing up in Kusagakure?" Naruto asked as he hoped that this place was nicer to her than what Konoha was to him. He was confident though that it couldn't have possibly been on the same level as what he had to go through.

"Well it was fairly difficult growing up here" Karin stated as she looked down, not really knowing why she was starting to spill secrets about her childhood and the painful memories that they brought. Seeing Naruto's face, she saw confusion combined with some worry as he wanted to know if there was anything that he could do to make her feel better.

Somehow, Karin felt an urge that was telling her that it was okay to confide in Naruto. She knew that he was the type of boy who would not look at her any different once she had spilled her secrets about how she didn't have the perfect childhood.

"Well, when I was three, my mum died from ovarian cancer. Mum died when I was young so that I don't have that many memories of her which is something that I am somewhat grateful. It means that it doesn't hurt as much when I try and picture what it would be like if she was still around." Karin said with the feeling of emotional pain spreading like a wild fire throughout her heart.

It was then that Karin felt both of her hands taken as Naruto tried to do his best to make her feel better. He didn't want such a nice girl to be suffering from any form of pain.

"You're not alone in that feeling Karin-chan. I'm an orphan myself so I don't know what it means to have a parent or two. The only thing is that I can guess is it must be great having a father to make all of your worries go away with him saying that he'll protect you from all of the evil that is out there to get you." Naruto wistfully stated as there were a lot of things that he wondered of what life could have been like if a few things happened differently.

It was in an instant that the negative thoughts that Karin had surrounding herself were gone and she her mind went into doctor mode trying to heal the injuries of her date. Whether they be physical like it was with his broken leg or emotional when it came to the pain that he was feeling about being an orphan , they were all painful.

With a curious mind that was apparent given her chosen profession, the red haired girl asked Naruto a question that she hoped wasn't too tough for him to answer.

"Naruto-kun… can you please tell me what it was like to grow up as an orphan?" Karin asked with a bit of a pleading look in her eyes, something that Naruto could not resist.

"Sure…" Naruto said with a bit of a sigh included into the words that he was using to communicate with Karin. "I won't lie to you, it was tough" this immediately made Karin listen intently to what Naruto was saying. "For some reason I always got a lot less than what all of the other kids got at the orphanage." Naruto actually what the reason was but he was not comfortable with giving Karin that information despite liking her quite a lot.

"By the age of 7 I had been kicked out of the orphanage and into my own apartment so that I wouldn't ruin the chances of other kids getting adopted." Naruto stated with no emotions on his face because it was something that he wasn't sure was a good thing or a bad thing when it came to his development as a person.

At this point Karin gaped at the horror of having to have a kid go through such traumatic experiences at such a young age. She didn't know how she would have been able to handle being told that you were not wanted around because you were ruining the chances of other kids finding some happiness in their crap lives.

Despite having a dumbfounded look on her face, Karin still let Naruto continue on from where he was talking about his childhood. "The fund that is set up for orphan's to get money to live off always seemed to give me the smallest amount possible without its integrity being brought into question." Naruto stated as what he said was true, the orphan's fund did its best job at making his life as close to hell as possible without getting the Sandaime to notice what they were doing as they didn't want to incur the man's wrath.

"There was one thing that truly made my life hell though." This brought Karin's full and undivided attention because she wanted to know what was so bad that made Naruto think that being an orphan was better than what it was that he was going through.

"You know about how the Kyubi attacked our village twelve years ago right?" the blonde haired boy questioned to his date who nodded, wondering where this question was leading to as it seemed Naruto's story of what his life was like had taken a detour and he had started talking about something else.

Sighing because this was tough for him to say, even if the excuse that he was going to use that gave Konoha the right (in their view) to make his life the most absolute hell it could have been, had it not been for the Sandaime Hokage.

"Well I was the child that was first born as soon as it had been sighted that the Kyubi appeared to destroy our village. Once word of this got out to everyone who lived in Konoha, they thought that I was the reincarnation of the nine tailed fox and then they started doing things to sabotage me like barring me access to a hospital or a library." Naruto stated to Karin's horror as she didn't know what it would have been like to live through life with all of those things going against you. It was this that made Naruto in her eyes much more of a stronger person as he was able to deal with things that she was sure that she wouldn't have been able to deal with.

It was then that before Naruto could go on about his childhood in more detail, the dishes that Naruto and Karin had ordered had just arrived.

If he was honest with himself, it was the best food he had ever had to eat though that was not saying much because he only had rotten vegetables and ramen to compare it with.

Seeing the look on Naruto's face as he was eating the food with manners that she was having a lot of trouble keeping up with, Karin knew that Naruto liked the food that he was eating and it was at this moment that came up with a bold idea, one that she was hoping that Naruto would agree to.

That idea was the idea of sharing a bit of food from each other's plates so that they could try a bit of each other's meals to see whether or not they liked the food that their date had ordered.

"Naruto-kun, do you want to swap a little bit of my food with some of yours so that we can try each other's food and see which one we like the most?" Karin questioned to Naruto who just looked a little confused for a second and then nodded and smiled back to his date.

The way how he had decided to do the procedure was to use his fork and scoop up some of the goat that he had ordered and to use the fork to directly place it into Karin's mouth.

Said red eyed girl was happy and both blushing tremendously at what was taking form in front of her very eyes as she certainly did not expect that to happen.

Moving a piece of her hair back with her finger, Karin opened her mouth, still able to hold the small, irreplaceable smile on her face as she took the food from Naruto's fork into her mouth.

The contrasting flavours that were in her mouth from her own meal and the new ones were assaulting her tastebuds nearly caused sensory overload. Karin.

Next it was Naruto's turn to taste the wonderful flavours of the combined foods as he ate the satay fish from Karin's fork. For Naruto it was a truly wonderful experience and one that he would treasure for a long time.

"So Naruto-kun, what do you think of the food, I think that it's really good and really liked it a lot, what about you?" Karin asked as she tried to restart the conversation that they had going before the food came along.

As Naruto finished the final mouthful of his dish, he re-engaged himself into the conversation that he and Karin were having. "Yeah, I liked it a lot. What is it that they call that hot element in the food that is a different taste to what it would be if it was just too hot for my mouth to handle." Naruto asked with genuine curiosity. He didn't know what it was but he definitely liked it a lot.

Karin would have normally replied with a remark that would have been a bit condescending. Since she now knew that Naruto had told her he was an orphan, she answered him normally.

"What you're tasting is called spices and they are some ingredients that are placed on the food which make it hotter in the way that's different to just it being purely hot. You ordered the mild one right?" Karin questioned to Naruto who only just nodded as he was readily taking the information in from Karin. "Well then that was not that hot at all, in fact that was pretty tame compared to a lot of the other spices that are out there." Karin said to Naruto's amazement as he wanted to test what his limits were when it came to eating spicy food.

"Wow, well when I get back to Konoha, I guess that I'm going to learn how to properly cook good food so that I can taste all different kinds of food because this tastes great!" Naruto commented as he watched how the waiter came over and offered them the desert menus.

It was then that Naruto and Karin had a look through their respective menus and chose to have some desert with Naruto having a slice of a chocolate cake and Karin having a mango flavoured ice cream.

Once the duo had finished their desert, Karin started asking Naruto questions about what his diet consisted of. She wanted to get Naruto onto the right track when it concerned his eating habits.

"So Naruto-kun, what types of food do you eat?" Karin stated to Naruto who nodded and started talking about what things he ate, which in Karin's mind was not enough for Naruto.

"Well I eat about on average about 15-20 bowls of ramen per day which is the main thing that I could get my hands on because of me 'being the reincarnation of the Kyubi'. Whenever I tried to get vegetables and other food, they would short change me and give me poor quality food.

The only place that would sell me food was a ramen bar which I guess that I clung to. I guess I ate there a lot so that is probably why my diet is not that great." Naruto summarized to Karin who nodded and started writing down on the piece of paper that was on the table.

"Well with the amount of food that you stated you eat, it shows to me that you have an unusual digestive system that which forces you to eat a lot of food." Karin stated to Naruto who nodded. He had come to realise that the benefits of having the Kyubi also came with some detriments that didn't even consider how Naruto was raised into the equation.

"Now, factoring the amount of food that you eat into the diet that we're planning for you, I've got one final question that I need you to answer. Is there anything that you don't like which will make you not stick with it?" Karin questioned as what she had in mind was fairly bland in her opinion. Sure, it would get the job done but it didn't sound as if it would taste all that nice.

It was then that Naruto shook his head and replied with something that Karin should have factored into her planning. "No, I don't really care at all for taste with food. I'd much rather eat something boring that's better for me than something that is bad but tastes nice." Naruto stated to the red haired girl.

As she heard this she couldn't help but be impressed. Karin couldn't admit to having the strong enough will power to eat clean food all the time without having a cheat meal once in a while.

Nodding, Karin put the final touches on her diet that she expected Naruto to abide by to the letter. She wanted Naruto to get better just as much as he himself did. "Here, have a look at it and tell me what you think." Karin said with pride easily evident in her voice as she handed Naruto the two pieces of paper that would guide Naruto's eating habits for a long time to come.

Looking it over, Naruto saw how it stated all the different things that the body needed to have inside it so that it could work at peak performance. It was exactly what Naruto needed if he wanted to become a great shinobi in not only his eyes but the eyes of everyone in the shinobi continent.

"Even though there is some things on here that I do not know what they do for the body, you obviously do so I will trust you in making the right decision for my health. As long as I follow this, I should have a body that is worthy of being in your presence right?" Naruto said with a small grin on his face as he was getting more and more use to flirting properly with Karin as the date continued.

Karin for her part constantly had to readjust her glasses in a feeble attempt to hide her blushing face. She didn't want to look bad in front of Naruto who was doing a good job in making her act like a stuttering mess all of the time.

It was then that the time that Naruto and Karin had been putting off for as long as possible. It was a moment that the duo had been dreading ever since Karin agreed to go out on a date with Naruto as it was time for them to part ways.

Unfortunately, the restaurant had kicked them out as they had to prepare for the influx of customers for dinner. Neither Karin or Naruto realised that they had spent four hours together but they weren't complaining one bit.

Their goodbye was surprisingly heartfelt and emotional because the two of them had bonded much more than what they had thought would happen during the date. They both wished that they were from the same village because if they were, the two of them knew that there would be a second date in the works.

Just because it was heartfelt and all emotional did not mean that it wasn't awkward. In fact, it was because of the feelings that that the blonde haired boy and the red eyed girl were feeling for one another made it all the more awkward.

Being the gentleman that he was, Naruto volunteered despite the hampered movement to go and do the gentlemanly thing in taking Karin to her family's apartment. He wanted to make sure that she got home safely, even if she was a fully capable kunoichi.

It was then that they were at the part that Naruto and Karin parted ways as she was about to go into her apartment and instantly fall onto the couch and sigh about how happy her day was and how she didn't want for it to end.

Knowing that Naruto probably didn't know why she was dawdling and stalling as much as possible, Karin decided that she had to be the first one to initiate whatever happened between the two.

It was then that Naruto was shocked so much that he had to rest up against the wall so that he didn't fall over. Right then and there the red headed girl had placed her soft lips a little clumsily on his own lips.

Looking back on life, Naruto would use this moment as his first proper kiss. The one with Sasuke was just a flat out no in his books. Neither party wanted to be involved in it so it didn't count as far as he was concerned.

Now it was quite clumsily done and awkwardly done but since neither Naruto nor Karin had ever had kissed previously, well it gave the duo some an excuse as to why it wasn't that great.

Now initially, when Karin had planted her lips on Naruto, she had expected for the kiss to be a quick, chaste kiss but she was wrong. They spent the good part of a minute, even though it only seemed like seconds to the two individuals engaging in the act but it was definitely worth the time as Naruto and Karin were having a truly unforgettable experience.

Breaking apart, Karin realised what had just gone on and blushed so bad that she nearly fainted on the spot right then and there. Naruto was not much better as he was thankful for having the crutches. They supported the weight of his jelly legs and allowed him to not fall down.

Realising what she had just done with a boy, Karin was shocked because she didn't know what her father would say to her. She could assume that he wouldn't be all that pleased with what she was doing.

Knowing that this shouldn't be happening since it was a first date, Karin started speaking, "Sorry Naruto-kun but I have to go because my dad wouldn't like to see what I'm doing and I don't want to disappoint him." Karin said in a rush as she gave Naruto one last chaste kiss on the lips before racing into her house and closing the door, jump onto the couch and start swooning over the boy who had stolen her heart for the first and only time.

There was a feeling of naughtiness in the back of her mind knowing that what she had just done was not something that her father would like happening. She honestly didn't care about that though as she was having the time of her life at that present moment in time.

Naruto himself was shocked with what had just transpired just happened. He was certainly not expecting to have a proper kiss with a girl let alone a great girl in Karin but he was certainly not complaining.

When the red eyed beauty stated how she didn't want to make her father mad; this was something that made Naruto happy because she valued family highly and Naruto did not want to cause a rift between Karin and her father. Naruto had a blissful smile on his face as he watched the retreating form of Karin for what he hoped wouldn't be a long time.

With the time that he spent with Karin over, Naruto made his way slowly but surely to the apartment that team 7 had been gifted for the time that they were in Kusa.

Walking up to the door that kept him away from his bed, Naruto knocked on the door to find Sakura there wondering where he had been. "Where have you been Naruto? If you wanted to go out, you should have come with us so that we could be a team and do team like activities."

Sakura was unaware that she was subconsciously clinging onto her team during her parents' divorce.

Surprisingly enough, before Naruto could say a word as to why he was out, it was the raven haired Uchiha who spoke up. This was something that made Sakura stagger as she didn't expect to hear the voice of her crush.

"The reason why Naruto didn't come to visit any of team 7 was because it brought memories of him not being train. How would you feel if me and Ino got together and constantly flaunted it in your face?" Sasuke said in the form of a question although he didn't expect it to be answered though as Sakura had gone into a world of her own trying to get rid of the pictures in her mind of her crush and rival together.

It was then that the voice of Kakashi interrupted the trio. Whilst he directed what he said to his sensei's son, he purposefully said it loud enough so that Sasuke could hear it. "So Naruto, I hear you really like the colour red" Kakashi asked the open ended statement as he watched the face of Naruto give away a slight blush as he remembered the parting gift from Karin.

It was then that Sasuke took in the appearance of Naruto and were surprised at the transformation he had gone under in just a little under a month.

Then they tried to tried to figure out the joke that Kakashi was saying but the only thing they could see was the red medical gauze tape tying his pant legs from dragging on the ground.

Realising that it must have been a joke between Naruto and Kakashi, Sasuke turned his head away from Naruto and back to their previous trains of thought.

Naruto however, he saw the gleam in his sensei's uncovered eye which was a tell-tale sign that his sensei knew what he had been doing for the whole day. Not giving his sensei the pleasure of seeing him in an uncomfortable situation, Naruto turned around and moved to the direction of his bedroom.

_Today was great; I just wish that Karin was a Konoha kunoichi so that we could be together. We had a good date and I am sure that we could have had a good relationship if only we weren't separated by such a distance._


	6. Since the return from

It was the day after the date that Naruto and Karin had just had and it was going quite well for Naruto apart from the fact that he had a broken leg. Even still, the spirits of Naruto's did not dampen.

Had it been Sakura who had found out about the fact that he had had his first date with a girl rather than his sensei Kakashi, Naruto knew that he would be in a lot more discomfort. He would have to deal with the pink haired girl questioning him on all of what he thought that were irrelevant topics.

What Karin did not know was that having the Kyubi sealed inside of him definitely made a difference when it came to the amount of time that it took Naruto to heal from an injury. Whilst this meant that Naruto had quicker recovery times compared to that of the average shinobi, it still did not deter from the fact that he had nothing to occupy his hyper active mind.

Previously Naruto was able to use pranks as a form of releasing the pent up energy inside his body. Now though since he had the cast on his crippled leg, Naruto did not have much choice when it came to what he was allowed to do.

With this time thinking, Naruto spent the time going over the date that he and Karin had just had the day before in meticulous detail as he tried to see if there was anything that he could do better.

It was then that he came to the realisation that he didn't have a life outside of being a shinobi. He didn't have any hobbies or something to occupy his time outside of being a ninja.

Realising that he would not be able to get a better chance at learning about how shinobi held diplomatic discussions with each other since his sensei was the one who was doing the talking with Kusa, Naruto had a brilliant idea that he hoped would work in his favour.

Knowing that his sensei would not be late because it was something that was important to the future of Konoha, Naruto thought that his sensei would be punctual when it came to something like this. Naruto made his way over to his sensei, albeit slowly. "Kakashi-sensei, is it alright if I ask you a question?" Naruto said politely to his sensei who just responded with an amused expression on his face.

"Well Naruto, you just did" this managed to bring the ire of Naruto as he chuckled at the expression on the boy's face. "But yes, you may ask a another question." Kakashi said with an eye smile visible from the only part of the skin that was on his face that was visible.

"Right, now Kakashi-sensei, since you know that I want to become the Hokage of Konoha one day, I want to be so good that even if people have issues with me, they'll have to pick me since I'm so good." Naruto paused for a bit to allow his sensei to take in what he was saying as he was referring to the chakra construct in the form of a fox sealed inside his stomach.

Getting the reference to the Kyubi, Kakashi nodded as he wanted to see where Naruto was going with this conversation. "Well when I started getting smarter, I came to the realisation that the Hokage had to be more than just an incredibly powerful ninja.

The Hokage has to be someone who is good at motivating his army in case of a war. He also has to be a smart person so that he can deal with clients and do the diplomatic discussions with the allies and possible future allies." Naruto stated to his sensei who was wondering what Naruto was getting at with all this talk as he had a meeting to attend.

Kakashi knew all of this because he had been the one who was subjected to quite a lot of subtle hints as to him becoming Hokage over the years. This was thanks to the fact that he had an exemplary record when it came to being an ANBU member and he had the bingo book record to put fear into the enemies' hearts. Not to mention that he also had the full support of practically everyone that made up the village apart from the old war hawk in being one Danzo Shimura.

"Well Kakashi-sensei, I was hoping that it would be a possibility as to whether or not I could accompany you to the diplomatic mission." Naruto stated to his sensei. He knew that it was unlikely to happen but there was certainly no harm in asking.

Kakashi gave Naruto a curious yet somehow serious look as he tried to discern how serious Naruto was about this. It was not something that he could readily allow since it was such an important mission to the future of Konoha. After an intense stare down with his student, Kakashi finally relented and allowed Naruto to come on the proviso that the Kusa lead Jonin was accepting of having Naruto there.

"If this goes ahead though, there are some rules that you must follow. You must not speak at all during the entire conversations as it could affect the way that the discussion goes.

You will essentially be a fly on the wall and just take notes in your head if they did allow you in. They wouldn't allow you to have a book or paper in the room." Kakashi said to his student.

Naruto nodded quickly as he was a little nervous around their sensei when he was serious. It was something that he had never seen before and it was fairly scary for him as it had to be something important for his sensei to be all serious. This was in comparison to who he was usually; a chronic pervert and someone who was always three hours late to anything below that of an A-ranked mission.

Once all that was done, Naruto and Kakashi headed their way down to the office in which the head Jonin from Kusa resided when he went to work every day.

When he heard the knocking that was coming from the other side of the door to his office, the man allowed what he thought was only Kakashi to come in. This was so they could discuss the matters at hand as the grain and poison agreement that had been in effect from the second great shinobi war.

When he saw someone else coming into the room with Kakashi, his curiosity was peaked and he had to ask a question. "Well what do we have here, why is there someone else coming along with you? I thought that we agreed on only there being us two here for the meeting Kakashi-san." The man said in a polite tone although Kakashi knew that the man was irritated quite a bit of the lack of respect for not telling him.

And with that said, Kakashi replied with an eye smile that had been trademarked ever since he was a ninja. It was his way of being polite yet while still being a condescending arsehole at the same time. "And yet you still have three members of your ANBU division here ready in position to strike, that's a bit ironic huh?" Kakashi questioned in a false cheery tone to say as if that he didn't know what he was doing in the room.

Taking the words of Kakashi in stride, the Jonin head of the room asked Naruto a question "Well, little _boy _why is it that you are here and not out playing with your teammates." The man questioned to Naruto who didn't know what to do as his sensei had told him not to speak.

But since this man was directly answering him with a question that a nod or a shake of the head wouldn't suffice, he decided to look to his sensei for some advice as he was not sure what he was supposed to do in the situation that he was in.

Getting a nod from his sensei, Kakashi, Naruto started to reply to the Jonin commander of Kusagakure. "I have a dream to become the Hokage sir, that means that I not only have to be a strong shinobi but I also have to be someone who is good in diplomatic situations and generally as a ninja you don't get many opportunities to gain experience in that field. When Kakashi-sensei told me what our team what we were doing for our mission I had hopes that I could watch how two Jonin level ninjas held talks between one another." Naruto politely stated with small nod of the head as he demonstrated hopefully enough manners so that he could stay in the room.

Taken back by the amount of politeness that Naruto had shown, the Jonin commander was heavily impressed by Naruto's emotional control, Admittedly, he expected the other children his age be nowhere near as well-mannered as Naruto.

Nodding at the non-specific question that Naruto had asked during his speech, the Jonin commander made a gesture for Naruto and Kakashi to take the seats that were in the room

"I see from the crutches that you have with you, you must be the student of Kakashi's that got the broken leg." The man behind the desk stated as he looked at Naruto. The sole point was to start a conversation with the kid he was curious about.

Naruto for his part was wondering what the man meant with that question and it wasn't until the man followed up the question with a statement that he found out. "I've had a broken leg or two in my time as a ninja so I know that they need to be elevated as much as possible to stop the blood flow as it will make the injury heal quicker." Naruto nodded as he had heard that information when he had talked to Karin when the fibreglass cast was hardening itself.

The Jonin commander didn't need to voice the unspoken question to one of his ANBU operatives that were guarding him. During this process though, the Jonin commander couldn't hide his annoyance.

This was something that Kakashi took full advantage of as he noticed a few ticks that he would use throughout his discussions.

**Time skip**

The meeting went well; both parties being Kakashi Hatake and the Jonin commander of Kusagakure were happy with the outcome as they both thought that their village got the better deal.

Konoha would be getting a much cheaper price than what other villages got when it came to the prices of the poisons that Kusagakure sold. In return, Kusagakure and in smaller portions the entire land of grass got better import costs when it came to red meet and grained food.

Walking out of the room, Kakashi felt the need to ask Naruto as to what he had gathered during the meeting. "So Naruto, what happened?" The silver haired Jonin asked as he was curious as to how good his sensei's son was in the art of deciphering hidden messages and how to look for people's tell-tale signs.

Not even bothering to remove his gaze from the path that he was headlining on, Naruto spoke to his sensei. "Well most of the things that I missed were due to the fact that I didn't know what you were talking about. This meant that I couldn't see the finer things that were going on between you and that other man.

The only thing that I got when it came to him showing his emotions through his facial expressions was when you annoyed him and he had a tick in the area surrounding his right eye. I guess if I had training in the art of detecting people's emotions through there facial expressions, then I would have been able to get more." Naruto stated to his sensei who looked impressed that Naruto managed to get that much when it came to reading small facial expressions and what they mean in terms of someone's emotions.

For Kakashi, the change in Naruto's appearance and his personality was something that astounded him. In just one month his sensei's son had gone from loud, obnoxious and retarded to a smart, albeit someone who has no information in his head, polite, calm (most of the time anyway) and well-mannered person.

The silver haired Jonin wished he knew what he could attribute Naruto's change to so that he could thank the person. He knew it wasn't the Sandaime as he had also been baffled by Naruto's new change.

"You were very lucky Naruto" This managed to get the attention of the blonde haired boy. He wanted to know what he was lucky on and so that it wouldn't be luck that got him through the next time.

**Later**

Now that they had gotten back to the apartment that team 7 had been allocated, Kakashi was just about to leave the room so that he could go and check on Sasuke and Sakura to see what they were doing. He was confident that he knew what they were doing though as he guessed that Sasuke would be training and Sakura would be there to cheer him on.

It was then that Naruto's voice made the silver haired man's attention go to his sensei's son. "Kakashi-sensei, is there something that I can do to keep my mind occupied rather than it being on my leg because it wouldn't take long for me to be bored." Naruto said as he hoped that his sensei could come up with something that he could do to alleviate his boredom.

It was the feeling of pride going through Kakashi about how Naruto sacrificed his own wellbeing for one of his teammates that relented about giving Naruto preferential treatment when it came to getting the edge in his training.

Since it was only Naruto that was getting the lesson from him, Kakashi knew that he didn't have to dance around some topics that he would have to if either of his two other students were listening.

"Well Naruto, you should just practice the academy chakra control exercise of sticking things to your body as it will build up more chakra control. It is something is something that you are in desperate need of because of the Kyubi. While you have abnormally large chakra reserves that are even greater than mine, you lack the control to take full advantage of the chakra inside you. It will also make learning jutsus easier so that they don't blow up in your face." Kakashi stated to Naruto who took it in stride with his face giving off a bit of a grimace at the mentioning of the Kyubi.

Normally Kakashi was someone that didn't like to act serious all of the time. Since it was his sensei's son whose life was on the line, he decided to make an exception and tell Naruto straight up what he needed to work on if he wanted to become the Hokage of Konohagakure.

"The more things that are small and weigh quite a bit, the better your chakra control will be. So I guess I should get going and see what Sakura and Sasuke are doing." Kakashi said before he disappeared from view via the use of the shunshin.

**Time skip**

The week and a half that team 7 had been graced by the village known as Kusagakure in which the village had allowed them to stay at for free was coming to an end.

The only thing that Naruto had to do before he returned to the place that he was born in was to go to the Kusagakure hospital and hand back the crutches. This was something that he hoped he would get lucky and meet Karin-chan for the final time before he went back to Konoha. He assumed that he was never going to see the girl ever again. How wrong was he!

The sad thing about when Naruto went to drop off the crutches was that he didn't get to meet Karin for a final time during his stay in Kusa like he had hoped.

What Naruto had noticed during the time that he had been on crutches though was that Sakura was a little nicer around him. He guessed that this was because he had put his body on the line just to save the boy that she had a crush on.

Sasuke too in Naruto's eyes was opening up a bit more as he started to talk a bit more and grunt a little less although it was still not enough for him to lose the title of being antisocial.

With Kakashi carrying Naruto home all of the way on his back because he still had a cast on, it meant that team 7 didn't have to take a long journey to get back to Konoha. It was a humiliating experience for Naruto and he tried valiantly to keep his pride.

In fact it only took them two days to reach their destination. They probably could have reached Konoha sooner had Sakura had some form of endurance in her body.

Once the team of 3 genin ninjas and a Jonin had gotten past the fairly lax security of Kotetsu and Izumo, Kakashi spoke up. "Now you three are free to go and do whatever you want to do but you have to be ready for some training tomorrow at 8 in the morning." The sharingan warrior stated to his team as he left the front gates of Konoha so that he could go and report to the Sandaime as to why Naruto had a cast on his leg.

**With Hiruzen**

Hiruzen called out to beckon whoever it was behind the door that his secretary allowed to pass through so that they could enter his office. It was then that he was greeted with the site of Kakashi Hatake entering the room.

"Hello Kakashi, would you like to give me the report as to how the mission went." Hiruzen said with a smile on his face as he had full confidence in Kakashi.

Now normally Kakashi would say stuff like "Huh, you say something?" or other things along those lines that would prolong the conversation. That was why the Sandaime Hokage was surprised when the silver haired Jonin-sensei of team 7 got straight into the thick of things.

Once he had finished speaking about how the battle between him and Kakko went as well as the battle between his team and the chunin from Iwa, Kakashi waited to see what the reaction was from the dictator who was known as the Sandaime Hokage.

"This is very troubling Kakashi, the fact that Iwa would do something so brazen that it could start a new shinobi war is very troubling indeed." Hiruzen murmured to himself as he tried to figure out what the best cause of action that wouldn't involve a full blown war.

The Sandaime Hokage was brought out of his revere when Kakashi Hatake spoke up about what should be done to quell the attacks Iwa had made on his team. If it made _Sharingan no Kakashi _serious, then it wasn't good at all.

The frown on the Sandaime's face though was nothing that made the anger in Kakashi subside. From the time that the silver haired man had been _Wolf _in the ANBU, he had spent a lot of time as the Hokage's guard meant that he had been privy to his fair share of information. He had also learnt quite a lot on Hiruzen's tell-tale signs.

Seeing them on his boss' face at the moment meant that Kakashi knew that Hiruzen was going to take the easiest option. That usually meant that Naruto would get the short end of the stick.

"We can't start a war for something like this; think about all the innocent people who would have to die just to sate your feelings of revenge. They don't deserve to have to go to war just because of one person." The Sandaime Hokage stated to Kakashi who he hoped got the message that he was trying to give.

Kakashi did get a message; it was the one of "I don't want to start a war because it is the easier decision."

Peed off at what he had just been told, Kakashi let loose some information that it was lucky that the two ANBU guarding the Hokage were Tenzou and Yugao Uzuki who were fiercely loyal to the Hokage and not to Danzo.

"Yeah, because it's not as if the majority of Konoha's shinobi forces wouldn't want to go to war with Iwa because they tried to kill the son of the Yondaime Hokage would they?" Kakashi asked a rhetorical question to Hiruzen who just look astounded that the student of said Yondaime Hokage would reveal information like that.

There was a slight falter in the position coming from both Tenzou and Yugao as they certainly did not expect for something that big to be revealed and that they were the ones to find out. This though was quickly, almost instantaneously corrected by the two ANBU members as they got back into position in case of an incoming attack.

It was then that they saw their sempai get attacked verbally assaulted by their boss as he went into a tirade about revealing secrets. "Kakashi! That's an S-ranked secret, what would happen if you someone from another village were to hear that? We could be at a war with Iwa because I wouldn't put it past Onoki to attack Konoha just to have a shot at killing Naruto." Hiruzen shouted as he didn't want to have to prepare the hidden leaf village for war.

Kakashi just gave an eye smile to the Sandaime to show that he now knew how he could get revenge against Iwa for not only killing his teammate but for their unknown attempt on Naruto's life.

This though was an empty threat on the behalf of the silver haired warrior and it was something that both Kakashi and Hiruzen knew. They both knew that Naruto was nowhere near ready enough to go on missions without Kakashi as his squad leader. If Konoha had to go to war, Kakashi wouldn't have the luxury of looking after Naruto as he was too important to Konoha's chances of winning a possible war.

What Kakashi and the Sandaime both knew though that Hiruzen did not have the balls to do was that if Tenzou had the Shodaime Hokage's necklace that he combined with his Mokuton powers, he'd have enough to overpower the Bijuu's.

With nothing really else to say about the conversation when it came to his team and what had happened during the battle, Kakashi did the mission briefing.

Once that was done, Kakashi left so that he could go and get some quality memorial time. He hadn't had spent any good time there recently since he had been away on a mission.

**The next day**

Arriving the customary three hours late that he usually did, Kakashi told his team something different today instead of their usual teamwork training which was subsequently followed up by the customary D-ranked missions.

"Today there will be a new form of training that you three will be doing." At this bold statement, everyone that was in the area which, admittedly was only Sasuke, Naruto and Sakura sharply turned their heads as they faced their sensei as they wanted to know what this new form of training was going to involve.

"It's called tree climbing." Kakashi stated as he waited for some kind of outburst about the fact that they already knew how to do it. Before that could happen though, Kakashi decided to explain a bit better so that he made sure that Naruto and Sasuke got it as they meant more to him than what Sakura did.

"Before that, let me talk about how chakra, the base ability of a ninja.

Chakra is the energy that a ninja utilizes to perform a jutsu. That energy comes from the body energy that is collected from every cell inside the body and the spirit energy that comes from experience and how smart you are.

In other words, jutsu's come from these two energies that are squeezed out of the body and moulded together. This process is called chakra control and when someone has their hand in a seal, they can perform a jutsu." The silver haired Jonin stated in a factual tone as he watched Naruto and Sasuke to see what there facial expressions would tell him.

Naruto's was saying that while he was curious, he didn't know what the point of it was as it was something that he learnt when he was at the library. Sasuke's expression was slightly different as he was more vocal in showing his disinterest at the fact that his new technique wouldn't do anything for him in his goal of killing his older brother.

It was then that Kakashi decided to answer the looks on the faces of the two boys that made up his genin team were giving him. "No, you are guys aren't able to properly use your chakra reserves just yet." Kakashi bluntly stated to both Naruto and Sasuke.

This rang home for the blonde haired jinchuuriki as Naruto instantly remembered the conversation that he had had with his sensei when they were just arriving back from their meeting. Sasuke on the other hand was looking quite incredulously (for an Uchiha) at his sensei as he thought that he had quite good control over his chakra. He could even use a fire jutsu which every genin in his graduating year couldn't do

Sighing, as Sasuke didn't get what he was saying, Kakashi spoke up as to hopefully clue in the raven haired boy as to what he wanted Sasuke to do. "Just listen up, as I said before moulding chakra is to extract the energies from both the body and the spirit, then mould them as to combine them together." Kakashi stated to Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura before pausing, giving them time to digest the newly given information.

"Each jutsu requires a different amount of chakra in it, in other words the mixing process will be different. You are not able to manage your chakra control effectively.

Even if you are able to mould a large amount of chakra" at this point Kakashi casted a meaningful eye towards Naruto which the boy took notice of and paid an increased amount of.

If you cannot control your chakra properly, then your jutsu will only be half as effective as what it would be if you had less chakra but more chakra control. Wasting chakra will result in your stamina being nowhere near where it could be because you're wasting chakra that could be used to fuel more jutsus." Kakashi stated as he looked over at both Sasuke and Naruto as he wanted them to be the ones to take this information at heart.

Naruto was someone who liked hands on with his training the most. It was much easier for him to discern progress rather than learning something from a book. This was why he was the first who to ask a question.

"So, Kakashi-sensei what is it that you want us three to do when it comes to our chakra control?" Naruto questioned as he wanted to get to the training part in which he could learn how to control his chakra better so that he could use his two battle ready jutsus better.

"You're going to learn how to control your chakra within your body. You must go through rigorous training in which you will no doubt have to put your life on the line." Kakashi said as he tried to oversell the danger level of tree climbing He liked to toy with the heads of his three students.

When Sakura asked what they were going to be doing, it was then that Kakashi stated in a simple and yet precise tone. "This is not just ordinary tree climbing. This type of tree climbing involves not using your hands at all." The silver haired man stated to his students who were wondering how they were going to accomplish that.

Sakura, for her part had a deadpan expression her face which she had a legitimate reason for, well in her opinion at least. For all of the reading she had done at the library, she had never come across anything that talked about tree climbing as a form of getting better with your chakra control. "So Kakashi-sensei, how do we do that?" the pink haired girl questioned to her sensei. She wanted to see whether or not she could do the task to impress Sasuke to hopefully make him go out on a date with her.

Slightly impressed by his pink haired student's enthusiasm as she hadn't really shown any before when it came to training, Kakashi replied so that her curiosity could be satisfied. "So how do we do that Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura asked to which her sensei just smiled at her with his only uncovered eye.

"Just watch." Was all the silver haired man said as he made his way over to the tree in which he would start to climb it, only using his chakra.

When the former ANBU captain had got up to what he thought was an acceptable height, Kakashi got out three kunai from his holsters and through them down at the ground in front of Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke.

"This is how; gather your chakra at the base of your feet and attach it them to the tree trunk, something like this is possible if you use chakra." Kakashi stated as he hung from a branch coming off of the trunk upside down to prove a point to his three students.

It was then that Sakura spoke her mind when it came to the training. "Wait! Kakashi-sensei, how is it that this training will help us become stronger?" Sakura asked as she wasn't sure what the point of doing the training was.

"Ahhhh, now we get onto the main topic. The main purpose of this training exercise is to accumulate the right amount of controlled chakra in the right location.

The amount of chakra used to make the tree climbing exercise work is actually quite subtle and the hardest place inside the body to concentrate chakra is the feet.

In other words, if you can master this technique than you can channel chakra to any other location along your body which would be needed for using a jutsu." Kakashi stated to his three students which had Sasuke and Naruto rapt with their full attention because this was just one step to their goals of becoming a better ninja.

"Well it's not like that anything is going to happen if I continue to give you this lecture so you might as well get too it. I need all of you to learn it with your bodies." Kakashi stated to his three students and motioned them forward to pick up the kunai in front of them.

"Use the kunai in front of you to mark how high you go up the tree. Each time try and do it just a little bit more than the last time as you can use it as motivation to get better." Kakashi stated as he wanted to see how his student's progress when it came to their first real form of training.

"Naruto, with your leg in a cast, you won't be able to do this to the same degree of what Sasuke and Sakura are able to because of your leg and the amount of pressure that it can handle, but you still get the chance to try and walk up the trees." Kakashi stated for a final time to his students who nodded as they filled themselves with determination as they each had their own reasons for completing this task to the best of their capability.

It was then that Naruto placed his foot that didn't have a cast on it on the tree and channelled some chakra into it. It was no surprise to the Jonin-sensei of team 7 as he watched how Naruto's foot rocketed off the tree and it was lucky for the blonde haired boy that he had crutches to support his balance.

The raven haired Uchiha was much the same in the fact that he attacked the tree with too much chakra much like his genin teammate in Naruto. Compared to what Naruto and Sasuke had just done when it came to how good they had managed to control their chakra, Sakura was in a league of her own when it came to competing with her two teammates. For the pink haired girl had made it all the way up to the third branch. She was calmly sitting on the branch as she tried to impress her crush in how good she was with her chakra control.

"Oh, it looks like that one who best at controlling her chakra is Sakura, the girl." Kakashi commented as he tried to induce some feelings of jealousy in both Naruto and Sasuke. This was in the hopes that it would make them train with even more vigour as they wanted to catch up to their female student.

_I wanted Sasuke-kun to compliment me… why does it always turn out like this?_ Sakura pessimistically thought to herself as she tried to gain the affections of the last loyal member of the Uchiha clan.

The sensei of team 7 was looking on with interest as he watched the interactions that Sasuke, Naruto and Sakura were having with each other. Hhe tried to find a way to spur them on even further to train for harder, longer periods of time.

"Maybe it's Sakura and not someone else that is closest to becoming the Hokage right now." Kakashi said with Naruto in mind as he knew that the boy's desire was to become the Hokage. Naruto for his part looked down in concentration as he tried to not let the words of his sensei get to him.

It wasn't only Naruto who was getting ribbing from Kakashi as Sasuke too got it "Maybe the Uchiha clan wasn't as great as what they were claimed to be…" Kakashi trailed off as he watched the normally impassive face turn into a fierce scowl. It was as if anything that was said about the Uchiha clan was extremely taboo around Sasuke Uchiha.

Seeing what her sensei was trying to do, Sakura tried to get onto Sasuke's good side by sticking up for him and attacking her sensei, albeit verbally. "Hey shut up sensei!" Sakura stated as she had worries of her crush hating her.

What none of the genin that made up team 7 didn't know though, was that Kakashi had totally different thoughts when it came to Naruto and Sasuke. _These two though have chakra reserves inside them that Sakura couldn't even possibly hope to match._

**Time skip**

1 week had passed since the day that Kakashi had shown his team the tree walking exercise and they were getting stronger as the days went on.

Team 7 was going from strength to strength as all of his team had been able to go up to the top of a tree and then come all the way back down and yet not once lose their control over their chakra.

The first person in the group of three up and coming fledging ninjas was unsurprisingly Sakura since she had a much smaller chakra reserve compared to what either of her two teammates.

The second person to get the chakra tree climbing exercise down was the middle man in the team when it came to the chakra control vs. reserves battle. It was Sasuke Uchiha who got it down which left Naruto all to himself when it came to practising his chakra control.

Once Sasuke had gotten the tree climbing part of the chakra control training done, Kakashi told the raven haired boy to use the** Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu (Fire Release: Grand Fireball Jutsu) **once again as he wanted Sasuke to realise the benefit of doing chakra control training.

The result was instantaneous as Sasuke fired off the ball of flame from his mouth and watched how the flame was a little more concentrated. Before it was like a wave. Now it was almost in the shape of a sphere. The damage that the jutsu caused was quite significantly higher than what it was before Sasuke learnt the tree climbing. The big difference though was that this time Sasuke felt as if he had a lot more energy to give compared to before.

The final person out of team 7 to get the training completed was Naruto and he managed to get it done in under the week that was the average time it took for a genin. It was hard for Naruto as with the cast on his leg, it meant that he had a harder time in learning the skill. When Naruto did what his sensei had said about using the jutsu that he had learnt the day before leaving on their first mission, he found the results quite substantial.

Naruto was now able to knock down smaller trees. Naruto had found that with the extra chakra control that his jutsu came easier to him compared to what it was before.


	7. Her stay on the moon

Having just finished learning the chakra control technique called tree climbing from his sensei, Kakashi Hatake, this meant that Naruto had to practise all of the jutsus that he knew in front of his sensei which Kakashi had told Naruto to do as it would show Naruto the importance of chakra control.

Once that was done and both Sasuke and Sakura had gone their own separate ways after the completion of the training, which was the alternate meaning of Sakura going to stalk Sasuke to see whether or not she could get him to go on a date, Naruto asked his sensei a question, one that he had been wanting to ask ever since they had returned home from Kusa.

That was a question that he couldn't ask when he was around his two teammates as it was something that involved the Kyubi which was still a taboo subject when it came to Naruto as it was something that he wasn't comfortable talking about it to anyone that didn't already know about it and who treated him fairly, based on their view of him instead of the view of majority of Konoha.

"Kakashi-sensei, before you go, there's something that I need to talk about and I didn't want to talk about it with Sakura and Sasuke around." Naruto stated to his sensei in a serious tone of voice as he did not like talking about the Kyubi much but since it was necessary, he would.

Hearing the exact words that Naruto used and the tone of voice that came with the words out of his student's mouth clued Kakashi in that Naruto wanted to speak to him about the Kyubi. Turning around from where he was just about to use the **Ninpou: Shunshin no Jutsu (Ninja Arts: Body Flicker Jutsu) **in which he was planning to go to a bar and have a drink with Asuma, Kurenai and Gai.

"Sensei, I feel as if that my leg is all healed better because of the Kyubi which I have attributed most of my quick healing to now that I know where it comes from, but when Karin-chan" Naruto knew that there was no point in hiding the fact that he went out on a date because his sensei already knew. "Said that my leg had to wait about 5 weeks, she didn't know about the Kyubi being inside of me that makes the injury heal much faster." Naruto stated to his sensei as he now wished that he could have the cast off as it was extremely annoying when it came to walking around town.

Having dealt with his fair share of casts when it came to broken bones, Kakashi knew exactly what to do when it came to getting the offending thing of Naruto's leg. With a nod on Kakashi's behalf he bent down to Naruto's leg and used his skills in vibration manipulation when it came to lightning and used a series of jabs along the side of the cast which was sharp enough to break the cast and yet it wasn't sharp enough to break the skin or damage what the skin held beneath it.

In less than five minutes, Naruto now had fully functioning mobility now in his leg now that he didn't have to wear a cast; before Naruto could even utter a smile on his face the silver haired ninja did something that dampened his spirits a little bit.

"Just because you have your cast off doesn't mean that you will be free to test the limits of your ankle Naruto." Kakashi said in a meaningful tone as he knew that was exactly what his blonde haired student was going to do.

"Naruto, I expect you to follow my orders as if this was a mission." Kakashi stated to Naruto who only just nodded as he wanted to know what was so important to his sensei which meant that he couldn't use his leg fully.

"Now Naruto I want you to limit yourself to only subjugating your recently healed ankle to the movement that a civilian would be safely able to handle as otherwise you will just re-injure yourself as while your leg may feel better, it is still easily able to re-break itself since it is still in the process of healing itself and is not fully recovered." The silver haired man lectured to his student who only nodded and said thank you to his sensei who just vanished away from sight as he went to go get a drink.

Now with his leg out of the cast, Naruto could freely walk around and it was something that made him happy as he finally didn't have to keep lagging behind his teammates and keeping them to walk at his pace and not the pace that they normally walked at.

Being the proper person that he was, Naruto picked up the remains of his cast and held them together as he went to the nearest bin which was quite far away as he was at his team's training ground.

All the while Naruto went looking for the bin to place the remains of his cast in the bin; he walked along the cemented ground with one foot in a shinobi sandal with the other foot being bare. It gave everyone the impression that didn't see the fibreglass in his hands that he was a grade a hobo.

Once Naruto put the fibreglass in one of the town's garbage disposal units, Naruto went back to his apartment so that he could get his other closed toe shinobi sandal and the medical gauze wrappings so that he didn't look like a retard in his own opinion but not before washing off the dirt that his foot had acquired and went down to the library so that he could get some more information into his brain, this time about how the civilian world worked since he had practically no information on the way how civilian's generally lived compared to how a shinobi lived and even then he had little compared to what his sensei knew and demonstrated that knowledge in his discussion with the Kusa Jonin commander about the trade agreements.

**The next day**

When Naruto arrived on the dot at the time that his sensei had specified, even though he knew that his sensei was not going to show up on time, Naruto made a vow to himself that he didn't want to develop the bad habits from his sensei as he knew that if the snake clan found out what he was doing then they wouldn't be too impressed and joining the snake clan was something that Naruto held in high regard and was something that he was aspiring to.

If someone who hadn't seen Naruto now that he had his cast off, well they would see the right leg of Naruto no longer covered in the thick and cumbersome fibreglass cast that he use to have over his ankle was now long gone and Naruto couldn't be happier.

Despite the fact that having the cast made out of fibreglass which allowed it to get wet which meant that Naruto could actually have a shower with relative ease, it did not deter from the fact that his leg was heavily dirty underneath the cast which was something that made the leg smell like half a year old cow manure thanks to his over sensitive nose.

Once Naruto had gotten his right leg clean, he felt thoroughly refreshed for the first time since the injury as it now meant that he didn't have to smell the stench coming off of his body.

What someone could also find if they looked at the resident jinchuuriki of Konoha, they would spot Naruto with a book in his hands. The reason as to why Naruto was reading this was because he wanted to gain more knowledge on what should be done on dates.

The date that he had had in Kusa with Karin was a real eye opener as it gave Naruto a lot of information on the fact that he had no real information inside of his head, this was especially evident when him and the red haired girl had their meals and he had to ask what was the sauce that was surrounding the mutton was. That was why Naruto was spending more and more time reading as he tried to fill up his head with all sorts of information that was needed for everyday life.

It was then that the voice of his only female teammate entered his mind as she said something to Naruto that made him take his attention away from the book in his hands. "Naruto, you got your cast taken off" Sakura said in a tone that made Naruto wonder why she was stating the obvious so blandly.

Since Naruto was nowhere near as skilled as his sensei in the art of reading a book and keeping the attention on the book while keeping a conversation with whoever it was that was talking with him, it meant that Naruto had to take his eyes away from the book even though he didn't really want to. "Yes, I did get the cast removed." Naruto said as he wanted to tell Sakura that he didn't really want to talk with her and still be nice in the way he spoke.

Not getting the hint that Naruto was trying to give her, Sakura started speaking as if it was Naruto's duty to stop whatever he was doing and focus all of his attention onto her. This was just something that Sakura would take a long time getting use to as every time she looked at Naruto's new appearance and personality; she was reminded with the old Naruto which would cloud her judgement on the new Naruto and displace the new Naruto with the old Naruto as it was the personality that was the one that you remembered more easily.

"Thank god, cause your leg smelled with it on, I nearly puked when I was around it, it was so disgusting." Sakura said in a tone that made Naruto want to tune her out as much as possible as she was getting on his nerves, but with the polite person he was trying to become, Naruto didn't know the right way about dismissing her in a respectful and dignified tone.

It was then that Sakura noticed the fact that Naruto was reading a book and with her having gotten some of the curious habits that Ino had developed since having a father that was the head of the village's torture and interrogation department. "What are you reading?" Sakura asked in a bit of a snobbish tone because despite Naruto taking the hit for her crush, it had not changed her view on Naruto who had rooted his previous personality into Sakura that would take something major for her to change her views on him.

Sighing to himself as he tried to hide it behind the covers of the book, Naruto knew that the pink haired teammate of his would not take no for an answer until her curiosity was satisfied, Naruto spoke up, trying to end the conversation as quickly as possible. "A book." Naruto plainly said, hoping that it was enough to deter Sakura.

Sadly it was not enough to deter the piqued interest of Sakura as the pink haired girl went over to Naruto to ask him once again what he was reading, only this time wanting a more specific answer. "Well yeah, I got that part because it's not as if you're reading a magazine or something else like that, what I meant was, what's the book that you're reading about?" Sakura questioned as she expected an answer from the boy that she thought that still harboured major feelings for her.

When Naruto didn't answer straight away, Sakura snatched the book out of Naruto's hands and read the cover which said: _The proper way to dating; how to act so that your partner will feel as if you are worthy of another date._ Immediately as soon as Sakura red the title of the book that was previously in Naruto's hands and thought that Naruto was expecting her to go out on a date with him sometime in the near future.

It was not long after this that Naruto got hit in the head by an incoming fist of Sakura as he was not expecting the incoming projectile still attached to the propulsion system that was her muscles. Naruto was thankful for the fact that since Sakura hardly trained at all; it meant that her punches were actually weak. It was this that made Naruto rather being hit by Sakura than what he would than if he was going to be hit by his sensei or even Sasuke.

Knowing that retaliation was something that he thought that the snake clan would think was petty, Naruto refrained from hitting back at Sakura, this was an action that made Sakura think that Naruto liked her and she tried to hit him again so that it would get the ideas out of his head. This only led to Naruto's opinion of her from what was as great as the sight of Tsunade of the _Densetsu no Sannin _but naked right in front of him to that of what most guys thought of her.

That was of a flat chested girl naked pre-teen in front of you that was trying to rape you when you were trying to politely rebuke their advances.

This time around though, Naruto dodged the incoming hit and snatched the book out of Sakura's left hand and calmly went over to a different tree and re-opened the book to the page that he was previously at.

It was then that Naruto felt that he had to justify his actions even though he didn't really need to. "I'm not reading this because I expect to go out on a date with you, I'm reading this because I realised that from the last mission that there are a lot of things that I don't know the answer to and I want to find that out." Naruto stated to Sakura who deflated as she realised that she came to the wrong conclusion.

It was then that Naruto and Sakura were graced with the presence of the final member of team 7; Sasuke Uchiha had just arrived to the training ground wondering what had just transpired between Naruto and Sakura.

These thoughts were quickly dismissed when the lone Uchiha's thoughts drifted on how he could get better as a ninja since now that he had his clan's prized Dojutsu, the sharingan just recently activated and that meant that Sasuke wanted to test out its capabilities.

**3 hours later**

It was then that there was a puff of smoke in training ground seven as the sense of the team had just arrived via the use of the **Ninpou: Shunshin no Jutsu (Ninja Arts: Body Flicker no Jutsu)**

It was then that the familiar sound of Sakura screeching till her voice box broke about how her sensei was late could be heard within a two mile radius of where she was standing. This was subsequently followed by both Naruto and Sasuke cringing as the tone of her voice was anything but pleasant on their ears.

The final thing that was routine about the way that team Kakashi started off was that the man made up some crummy excuse which told people why he was late, although it was something that none of his genin students believed for a second. This time around it was an excuse about how he spotted a new book of the Icha Icha series only to find out that it was fake and then how he had to go and read a proper copy to purge the fake one from his mind.

Despite it being something that was a lot more of a chance for him team to believe him since Kakashi fanatically followed the book series written by his sensei's sensei, there was not one ounce of hope in Kakashi that his students would believe him.

"Right anyway… we are going to do some sparring for today's training so for today Naruto, since you still are restricted to moving like a civilian, you will be versing me as I will be able to control the fight unlike what you would be able to do if you versed Sasuke since both of you would give your best which could re-injure your leg." Kakashi stated to his students to which Naruto and Sasuke nodded as they had somewhat expected this turn of events.

Sakura on the hand nodded but it was not until a little bit later that the girl realised where Kakashi was heading with the sparring, this meant that she, the biggest fan girl of the lone Uchiha loyal to Konoha would have to go up against her idol in a full blown spar.

Horrified at the thought of facing her crush, Sakura didn't know what to do as she wanted to get out of the spar as soon as possible. This was a sentiment that the girl shared with her crush as Sasuke also didn't want to have to spar with Sakura.

Despite the pink haired girl's wishing's that it was because Sasuke didn't want to hurt her since she loved him so much, it was not the case at all. Sasuke didn't want to fight with Sakura for one reason, plain and simple.

That reason was the fact that since Sakura was so pathetic as a ninja because she never trained meant that the contest between himself and the girl that had a crush of overbearing proportions on him would be one that Sasuke would not be proud of winning.

Seeing the discomfort in both of his other students, Kakashi rectified his mistake and started speaking. "How about we have it so that Naruto vs. me, then Sasuke vs. me and finally Sakura vs. me since you two don't want to fight each other?" the silver haired Jonin said as he tried to fix the problem that he had just caused.

It was then that a squeal became something that hit all of the male's that made up team 7 since Sakura had just readily assumed that the reason behind Sasuke not wanting to fight her was because of the fact that he had some intense feelings of love and they were directed solely at her.

No one even bothered to correct her as they found it comical to watch how someone could be so smart when it came to the book work and yet be so stupid when it came to how much they knew about the boy that she had been crushing on for the most part of her life.

"Now then, how about we get to the spar now Naruto?" Kakashi questioned in a nonchalant tone of voice as he beckoned Naruto forward. When Naruto did just that, he got into the position of what the academy taijutsu said he should be doing and charged at Kakashi since his sensei expected him to go on the offensive from the get go.

It was a testament to the advice that his Jonin-sensei had given him when it came to his taijutsu as it was absolutely horrendous in his eyes and it was definitely the worse out of all the kids that he had tested to become a genin. When Kakashi came over to Naruto and questioned him about it, the answer that he got was not that surprising.

It turned out that the chunin-sensei Mizuki Touji, the same person who tricked Naruto into stealing the forbidden scroll of seals on the night of his possible genin graduation was the same person that had been sabotaging Naruto's taijutsu training as he constantly taught him the wrong stances compared to the right ones, the ones that every other student in the class was being taught.

When Naruto came to the same realisation that Kakashi had come to thanks to his grades at the academy and who the person in charge of the taijutsu training at the academy, it was easy for Kakashi to get Naruto to start cleaning up his disgraceful thing that he had the gall to call taijutsu. Kakashi was actually terrified if his "eternal rival" came across Naruto's apparent skills in the art of hand to hand combat. The end result would not be something that was pretty by any stretch of the imagination.

Anyway… how about we get the start of the match underway since you don't want to read me go on about some things that were not that exciting when I could be describing the fight between student and teacher?

With that said, Naruto charged at an albeit reduced speed since he had been forbidden by his sensei to do any real excessive movement by his sensei and did his best to disguise his first attack from his sensei.

Unfortunately for the blonde haired boy, since Kakashi was a Jonin and on top of that, he had a lot of experience when using a sharingan eye that he knew how to read opponents and detect what their form of attack was going to be.

When Naruto tried to feint with his recently healed leg and attack with a late punch to the ribs of Kakashi with his right hand. Seeing the attack from a mile away since it was coming at him very slowly, Kakashi easily blocked Naruto' arm after he had discerned that Naruto intended to feint with his right leg and wanted to see Naruto would do next.

It was then that Kakashi was surprised with what his blonde haired student managed to come up with when it came to getting out of the grasp of his sensei. Since Naruto knew that his silver haired sensei would expect the conventional attacks to come from either his leg or his arm, he had to figure out a good way surprise his sensei enough that he could get a hit in.

The way that Naruto did that was through the use of the upper most part of his body, the forehead. With that part of his body, Naruto thrusted the cranium directly at the solar plexus of his sensei.

Everyone including Kakashi and Naruto were surprised when the hit connected as no one expected Naruto to come up with such an unconventional method of hitting their sensei.

The hit in the solar plexus managed to cause Kakashi to go off balance since he had a slight loss of breath from the hit that came from Naruto. Seeing the opportunity in front of him, the blue eyed boy thought that this was the best opportunity to use his jutsu on his sensei.

What Naruto didn't know though was that Sasuke had his sharingan activated at the moment as he wanted to use the fight between his sensei and Naruto as the chance to learn some new jutsu's to add to his library of techniques.

Without Naruto knowing what the sharingan Dojutsu did and having not seen Sasuke activating the blood limit meant that the raven haired boy had an easy chance of learning the jutsu that Naruto was going to use right in front of him.

"**Fuuton: Fudangan no jutsu (Wind Release: Air Bullet Jutsu" **Naruto called out as he held the final sign next to his mouth as he exhaled the previously inhaled air and sent the compressed form of air right in the path of his sensei.

Seeing the jutsu that his student had just used, Kakashi thought that Naruto should learn about how the elements cancel each other out and thought that this was the perfect time to learn it.

That was why he called out the name of one of the Uchiha famous jutsu's as he finished his hands into the tiger sign and held them up to his mouth as he called out the name of the jutsu that he was using. "**Katon: Goukakyuu no jutsu (Fire Release: Grand Fireball Jutsu)"**

Since Kakashi did not have an elemental affinity towards the fire element, it meant that his jutsu wasn't anywhere near as great as the ones that someone from the Uchiha clan that had a pre-disposition to the fire element could do, though it still did its purpose of feeding off the winds of Naruto's ninjutsu and attacking Naruto at speeds that were almost double from when the fireball came out of the mouth of Kakashi.

When Sasuke watched this with his sharingan eyes, he was slightly disappointed at how his sensei used a jutsu that he already knew which meant that he couldn't learn a second new jutsu in the day.

Using a burst of speed that only a ninja could use, Naruto tested out the full abilities of his healed leg to the full test as he jumped to the side so that he could dodge the incoming large fireball.

With that done, Naruto moved his hands into the modified ram hand seal and called out the name of the jutsu that was the first "proper Jutsu" that he learnt. It was that of a clone variety. To be more specific, it was the** Kinjutsu: Tajuu Kage Bunshin (Forbidden Jutsu: Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu) **and it was something that only someone with Jonin level chakra reserves could manage, although none could even hope to match in terms of the sheer number of clones that Naruto could make.

Now some people might think that since Sasuke was an orphan who didn't have anyone as a role model to tell him right from wrong, it would be easy for someone to make an educated guess about how Sasuke would just try and use his ninjutsu to the proportions of what Naruto could do. They would be wrong. Sasuke was smart enough to see the fact that he just didn't have chakra reserves that could match Naruto and had to make do with the best that he had. That was why he didn't see the point in using his eyes on the jutsu that Naruto was making as it wouldn't suit someone with his chakra reserves like it did with Naruto. Plus, even if Sasuke wanted to know the jutsu, he could just use his clan library to learn it.

If Sasuke knew the full uses of the jutsu in how the shadow clone can give back all of the information that it gains during its lifetime and the fact that the clones were different from normal clones in how that these ones could use their own jutsus, well the lone Uchiha would have changed his mind.

Since Naruto did not know about how the clones could also use the other jutsus that he knew, well he would have done it himself but alas, Naruto for his part only knew that the clones worked with taijutsu and they all attacked Kakashi in the hopes of overwhelming him.

Whilst his taijutsu had drastically improved over the course of the two months that he had been a genin, it still did not deter from the fact that he had the worst taijutsu out of all of the graduating students from his year. In fact, Naruto had not only the worse taijutsu out of all of the children who graduated from his year, but he also had the worse taijutsu exam in the history of the academy in its entirety from when it started back in the era of the Nidaime Hokage Tobirama Senju.

Add to the fact that his chakra control was also just as bad, it was truly a wonder that Naruto ever managed to pass the exams and become a ninja. The sole reason behind Naruto graduating was not because of his skills as a ninja and how he was worthy of the title, no.

There were two reasons as to why Naruto graduated. The first one which had a lesser bearing on the outcome was because of how the Sandaime Hokage had a major soft spot in his heart for the blonde boy since Naruto had always come to him for guidance.

Seeing how Naruto was so dejected about not being able to become a genin was like a metaphorical Kusanagi blade from his prized student Orochimaru right through the heart and since he viewed Naruto as a surrogate grandson of sorts, made Sarutobi want to do the best for him.

Though the main reason as to why Naruto was promoted was because of the fact that he had the Kyubi no Yoko sealed inside him and that held a lot of sway in the Konoha hierarchy as the power inside him had to be kept in Konoha at all costs and become a ninja since other villages had their own tailed beasts and Konoha would have to use their Bijuu in an upcoming war, because Sarutobi knew that no matter how friendly some countries are at the moment, there would always be a war, just that the question was when and not if.

Hiruzen Sarutobi was lucky in how that Naruto had turned out so well when it came to how he had developed as a person when you considered all of the things that Naruto had been put through as a kid. Now while Hiruzen knew that Naruto's childhood could have been a lot worse compared to what it was like now with him in the position of Hokage.

If it had been someone else in charge of the village hidden in the leaves, like say someone like Danzo or Fugaku. Those two were two of the worst possible people to have in charge of Naruto's life.

Hiruzen wasn't even sure which person was worse when it came to being in charge of Naruto when it came to him growing up into a person that Minato and Kushina would be proud of.

Sure, if Naruto was put into the care of the Uchiha clan, Hiruzen at least knew that Naruto's death would be swift from the moment that he got behind closed doors and he would not have to suffer any torment in his life.

On the other hand though, if Danzo ever got his hands on Naruto with no one being able to trace it back to him, Hiruzen wondered if that was worse for Naruto as he would be emotionally conditioned into a mindless drone for Danzo to use to start wars and put the world under the one banner of Konoha.

This was why the Sandaime Hokage was thankful for Naruto's safety when he got word from Kakashi with Naruto's skills as a ninja sky-rocketing in the comparison of where he has three months ago as it meant that Naruto had much more control over his life.

Getting back to the story at hand, even with Naruto's major improvements were still nowhere near enough for him to even mount a small challenge on his sensei, Kakashi Hatake.

This was not through the lack of effort because Naruto definitely gave it his all as he went with a ballsy attitude when it came to trying to beat his sensei. For Kakashi it was just a matter of attrition and while Naruto had heaps of chakra in his system, he had nowhere near the control when it came to using the stamina in the right way, something that Kakashi did have to which the sharingan warrior used to his full advantage as he dodged the incoming attacks of the masses of clones and when he felt that it was necessary, he went on the offensive and destroyed the clones.

Feeling as if he had given Naruto a good enough work out on his leg and yet not pushed it too far so that there would be a repeat of the injury. What Kakashi didn't know was that he had greatly underestimated the healing capabilities that the Kyubi no Yoko provided for Naruto because the blonde haired boy's leg was actually fully healed.

In fact, the leg had been healed for about three days and was even stronger than what it was before Naruto's first mission thanks to the fact that he had been eating the proper nutrients through his vitamin shakes and high calcium milk that Karin-chan had told him to have.

Because Naruto didn't want to disobey his sensei for the fear of his sensei viewing him as a delinquent child who disobeyed the orders given to him, this meant that Naruto didn't tell his sensei just how good his leg was and patiently waited for the time that his sensei had told him to wait before he did any extensive training.

With stopping the match in mind, Kakashi used speed that out of the genin that made up his team, only Sasuke with his sharingan activated would be able to keep up with, Kakashi darted towards Naruto and gave him a solid punch to the solar plexus' of Naruto.

The damage caused by this hit was enough to wind Naruto bad enough that he fell to the ground and had to take some time to catch his breath. By the time the blonde haired boy looked up, he was staring into pointy end of the kunai which was being held by his sensei Kakashi.

In a pleasant tone of voice that Naruto detected no anger coming from, Kakashi told Naruto some advice. "You might want to forfeit the match Naruto because it can only get worse from here on out." The silver haired man said with an eye smile marring the only visible piece of skin as he told Naruto to give up.

Knowing when he was outmatched, Naruto nodded and got up fully and walked over to where his two teammates were and waited for his sensei to start talking about who was the next person that was going to fight their sensei.

"Alright, the next person that's going to be sparring with me is…" Kakashi said as he liked to drag things like this out as he liked the suspense it created. Looking at the faces of Sasuke and Sakura, Kakashi could easily tell that the person that he was going to pick was someone that wanted it more and that was something that the silver haired Jonin was going to reward.

All this was said with the same eye smile still on his face from when he versed his blonde haired student just a moment ago. "My opponent shall be you Sasuke." Kakashi said in a nonchalant tone as he noticed the smirk appear on the face of Sasuke Uchiha.

There was a good reason as to why there was a smirk on the raven haired boy's face as today was going to be the first time that he got to have a battle with his relatively recently awakened sharingan Dojutsu.

Since Sasuke had had a week and a half from when he awoke the blood limit, he had had time to practise with the newly activated eyes and had grown it to the point that instead of having a tomoe in each eye, Sasuke now had two in each thanks to the extensive use of the blood limit which, for activating the second tomoe needed to have extensive use to unlock it unlike the 1st and 3rd tomoe which needed a life or death experience to unlock it.

This was something that surprised Kakashi because he hadn't seen it in Sasuke's eyes yet and guessed that he must have unlocked it last night as his raven haired student liked to show off his sharingan as much as possible.

Knowing that the easiest thing that he wanted to get good at with his sharingan was that he wanted to get use to how the sharingan in taijutsu since it copied the movements of your opponents and also slowed them down as if you were moving much faster.

With that in mind, Sasuke made the first move which involved getting into a taijutsu battle with his sensei. Seeing that his student had his sharingan Dojutsu activated, Kakashi got into the basic Uchiha taijutsu stance so that Sasuke would not be able to copy his taijutsu since Sasuke already knew it all.

Frowning as he had seen what his sensei was doing by not allowing him to get any more freebies when it came to taijutsu styles; the raven haired Uchiha engaged his sensei in a taijutsu battle that was the best one that anyone from his graduating year could have put on.

Though, like Naruto, Sasuke just was nowhere near good enough when it came overall skill to even hope to make his sensei go on the back foot. Throwing a punch aimed at the left shoulder as that was the spot where he saw the best possible spot for him to get Kakashi off guard, Sasuke watched with fascination at how it seemed as if time slowed down and made him see where his sensei was going to block his incoming punch and adjust accordingly.

With the help of the sharingan, Sasuke made an adjustment in his where he directed his punch as well as launching a vicious kick at his sensei's abdomen. It was then that the superior speed of Kakashi combined in his experience made it easy for the single eyed sharingan user to get inside of Sasuke's guard and deliver a sweeping leg kick that stopped half way as it was redirected by Kakashi and went straight up the gap that Sasuke's legs had made thanks to his stance.

To the horror of the pink haired girl since it was her intended future baby maker that was hit the foot of her sensei made her crush cry out in anguish as Sasuke had taken a hit to the nads and was none too pleased about it.

For Sasuke, he had seen the incoming foot only when it was too late as he was focused on jumping to dodge the sweeping leg kick coming from his sensei and seeing if there was a hit coming from one of the arms of Kakashi that he forgot about the leg that Kakashi was using to try and sweep him off of his feet with. This was his downfall as once the raven haired boy saw the kick it was too late for him to do anything about it and he fell to the ground, quickly.

Being the nice type of guy that he was, Kakashi jumped back so that Sasuke had some time to recover from what he had just done as the silver haired warrior wanted to see if there was anything else knew that he would use today in their spar.

It took a minute or so, but Sasuke finally got up and glared heavily at his sensei for the embarrassing way that he got taken down and vowed to get back at him. It was then that Sasuke remembered something about the elemental affinities and how they worked which was the basis for his new plan to get his sensei defeated.

Going through the hand seals that were most familiar to him, Sasuke used the jutsu that he was most comfortable with thanks to the entire practice that he had had with it since he was from the Uchiha clan.

Calling out the name "**Katon: Goukakyuu no jutsu (Fire Release: Grand Fireball Jutsu)"** Sasuke watched the fireball go towards his sensei. As soon as the flames were close to his sensei, Sasuke immediately followed up with another set of hand seals, ones that were very familiar to Naruto as they made up the jutsu that he spent the most time learning.

That jutsu was the **Fuuton: Fudangan no Jutsu (Wind Release: Air Bullet Jutsu) **and it combined with the **Katon: Goukakyuu no jutsu (Fire Release: Grand Fireball Jutsu) **to create a very large fireball in the path, directly where Kakashi was standing.

Shocked and surprised with the jutsu combination that Sasuke had just used, Kakashi quickly ran through some hand signs that were covered from the lone Uchiha's eyes by the fireball that he had just created and called out the name of his jutsu.

"**Suiton: Suijinheki (Water Release: Water Encampment Wall Jutsu)" **Kakashi called out as he pulled some water out of the large pond to the right of where there battle was going on.

Since Sasuke didn't have any nature transformation when it came to his fire release, it meant that he couldn't make a strong fireball for the wind to enhance. This though wasn't the most glaring weakness when it came to the combination of Sasuke's as the raven haired Uchiha had an even bigger one.

That was the fact that since Sasuke had never used the jutsu that he _acquired _through alternate means from Naruto, it meant that he had no idea how the technique worked meant that it was nowhere near as good as what the jutsu had the potential to be.

Still though, the combination of the two, while not as good as the one that he and Naruto made on their first mission as a genin squad, it was still good enough that it forced Kakashi to use a jutsu to get out of the way of the incoming attack.

Naruto for his part was shocked. How had Sasuke managed to learn the attack that he had practically spent a whole day learning and his teammate pulled it out of nowhere like that? Naruto, for his part knew that it wasn't as good as what he could do it at but it wasn't the point.

The blonde haired boy felt proud since in his mind he was the only one on his team that knew the jutsu that he had spent quite a lot of effort in learning. To see Sasuke use not only a jutsu that he didn't know but to also use it in conjunction with one that you felt the most proud learning since it was the hardest one for him to learn, was something that was hard for Naruto to process, this was why he spoke up as he tried to understand what was going on and how Sasuke learnt HIS jutsu so easily.

"How…?" Naruto questioned with confusion lacing his words which was easily discernable for his pink haired teammate who was sitting down on the ground right next to him. "How did Sasuke manage to learn the jutsu that I spent so much time learning?" Naruto asked to himself but Sakura thought it was best for Naruto to know all about how great her crush was and decided to let Naruto know about the abilities of the sharingan Dojutsu.

"Don't you know Naruto that Sasuke-kun has the sharingan Dojutsu since he is from the Uchiha clan?" Sakura asked to her blonde haired teammate to which Naruto showed how little information was inside his head by shaking his head to Sakura's question.

"Sasuke-kun comes from the prestigious Uchiha clan which has the sharingan Dojutsu as its blood limit. Since Sasuke-kun awoke it on our mission, he now gets all of the benefits from having his clan's prized Kekkai genkai." Sakura stated in a factual tone although Naruto couldn't help but notice the way how Sakura said anything related to Sasuke in a different tone to what she said about other boys, including him.

Seeing the look that Naruto was giving her, the pink haired girl decided to explain to Naruto what Sasuke-kun's Kekkai genkai actually did. "Sasuke-kun's bloodline limit is so cool, that's why everyone calls him a genius and they especially will now once they realise that he has activated it.

The sharingan is well known and heavily feared throughout the shinobi lands because of its abilities: the most known fact about the sharingan is that it can copy any ninjutsu that it sees the moment Sasuke-kun's eyes see the hand seals that his enemy goes through." Sakura said in a dreamy fashion as she was oblivious to what Naruto's thoughts were.

Naruto was angry. Scratch that, Naruto was pissed off and his facial expressions were showing it, despite improving dramatically when it came to his control over his emotions, he still had nowhere near perfected his control over them and was prone to emotional out bursts. The lucky thing was though that Naruto managed to keep the thoughts inside his head this time around.

_So that's how the teme did it, it wasn't as if he actually put in all of the hard work into actually learning the jutsu like I did. No, he just used a bastardized copy of my jutsu from watching me perform it. He doesn't know all of the hard work that I put into learning the jutsu, he just steals all of the hard work that other people put into learning it and all he has to do is just look with a glance and he can do the jutsu almost as good._

_Though I can't say that it is much different from everything else he has gotten since he practically everything in life on a silver platter since his parents died… it just makes me so mad that he gets everything in life with such ease while I have to go through all of the hardships in life just to scrape by._

_Since Sasuke can learn any jutsu by just glancing at someone when they use it, I have to learn some other new jutsus and be careful to when I use them and make sure that Sasuke doesn't see me using them._

Not knowing about the musings that were going on inside the head of Naruto, Sakura continued on speaking about all of the traits of the sharingan which Naruto was thankful for as it gave him information that he wouldn't have been able to get out of Sasuke which he knew that he, sometime down the line would have to use against his teammate in a big battle.

"Also, the sharingan can make improvements in your taijutsu as if you went from a shinobi with taijutsu skills that would be equal to a genin coming out of the academy to that of a genin ready to take on the chunin exams since the sharingan makes it as if you can react a whole lot faster than what you would be able to without it." Sakura stated in a factual tone that made Naruto form plans in his mind on how to counter the abilities of the sharingan.

The best way that Naruto figured in the short space of time that he had was for him to increase his speed so much that it didn't even matter how quick Sasuke's reaction time was, he wouldn't be able to react quick enough to stop his hits.

This was something that Naruto came to realise when he versed his sensei because when he moved so fast that he couldn't keep up with him, it made Naruto realise that if you were fast enough, it didn't matter if you didn't have many jutsus because you could just use a kunai and end it like that without the need for a jutsu.

It was then that Naruto was brought out of his revere as his pink haired teammate started talking about the final ability of the sharingan which Naruto wanted to pay attention to as he wanted to know more about the sharingan so that he could counter it and beat Sasuke.

"The final ability of the sharingan is that if you make eye contact with it and the person who has the sharingan is good enough at using it, then the person can create genjutsu's just with eye contact which would make them extremely hard to beat as you wouldn't be able to look at them without the fear of getting caught in a genjutsu." Sakura said to Naruto who nodded and replied back as he was thankful for the information that the only female on team 7 gave him.

"Thank you Sakura for that, I didn't know that." Naruto politely said to Sakura who didn't even bother to reply except for a grunt and a shrug of the shoulders to indicate to Naruto that she didn't care whether he thought that it was worthy information.

On the inside though, Sakura was happy because it was the first time that the information that she had spent so hard at the learning and the rigorous amounts of hours it took to get all of the information stored into her head in which she could gather it out at any moment.

Naruto, on the other hand was trying to come up with a way that he could fight Sasuke and not look into his eyes so that he wouldn't get caught for any genjutsu and yet still be good enough so that the use of his eyes wouldn't affect him when it came to battling an Uchiha. Sadly for our favourite blonde hero, he hadn't found a way to do that yet.

It was then that Naruto realised that the match between his sensei and Sasuke was now over and that he didn't get to see how it ended, oh well, Naruto guessed that Kakashi was the one who one because Naruto knew there was a heap of differences between where he was as a ninja and where his sensei was.

Once the battle was done, Kakashi walked over to Naruto and Sakura and told the girl that it was now her turn to battle him and that she should give it her all as otherwise you won't really know just how good you are as a shinobi or kunoichi depending on your gender

Now Naruto, despite becoming a more polite person and knowing that he should be watching the way that his teammate was sparring with their sensei but Naruto could not bring himself to watching Sakura as he found her fighting style totally boring.

This was because of the fact that Sakura knew no ninjutsu outside of those that are taught at the academy. This combined with the fact that Sakura did not train outside of the mandatory training that Kakashi gave the team made Naruto believe that there was nothing exciting about watching her battle and this meant that Naruto turned his attention to other things like his development as a shinobi and how he would get better for the snake clan to accept him as he knew that if he got into the clan, then life would be all good since he knew that they must have access to all kinds of cool jutsus for him to learn.

**Half an hour later**

With all of the sparring sessions done and the advice that Kakashi gave his students on what to improve on so that they could grow as shinobi's, team 7 went to the office of the Sandaime Hokage so that they could get their daily D-ranked mission for the team to complete which would help the team with teamwork, interacting with a client while on a mission and subtlety preparing a genin team for what a C-ranked mission would be like and this time it was a tracking and capture mission in the form of the Fire Daimyo's wife's cat who had gone missing yet again.

The mission went well as Naruto easily compensated for the lack of movement he was able to do under the supervision of Kakashi thanks to the fact that Naruto could create about 500 copies of himself using the **Kinjutsu: Tajuu Kage Bunshin (Forbidden Jutsu: Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu) **the added amount of people searching for the cat made it so that team 7 now held the record for the quickest capture of the cat since the Nidaime Hokage Tobirama Senju had a team consisting of Hiruzen Sarutobi, Homura Mitokado and Koharu Utatane.

With the mission for the day done, Naruto made his way to bed so that he could get a good sleep which would allow him to wake up bright and early so that he could get to some more training so hopefully he could become a member of the snake clan.

* * *

><p><strong>Sorry about the ending of the chapter as I the stuff that I had initially planned for this chapter did not get put into it since I added the battle with Sasuke and Kakashi which took up some words and I want to keep my chapters around the 10k word mark and if I added what I was originally going to add it would be more like 15k words.<strong>

**Sorry to those who feel that I am not putting in enough dialogue in my stories and I will try and do that more often in the forthcoming chapters as they will have more action in them since I will be going on the wave mission next chapter and I hope that you like this chapter.**

**Tell me what you think and where I need to improve in any places. Also, if you have any suggestions that you think will go well with this story then fell free to send them to me via a review so that I can judge whether or not it would work well for my future plans for the story.**


	8. She listens like spring

**One month later**

For the blonde haired ninja, the time that Naruto had spent after getting his cast removed until today was a much better experience in terms of when it came to Naruto's ninja abilities since he had started to drastically improve from where he was a month ago compared to where he was now.

When Naruto found out from his sensei, Kakashi that the chunin known as Mizuki who was the instructor that Naruto had for the majority of time as Iruka was dealing with a younger class and only helped out Mizuki when there was some extracurricular activity going on, that Mizuki was the one who had constantly sabotaged his learning of taijutsu, this was something that made Naruto come to a realisation.

What if the taijutsu wasn't the only thing that the chunin-sensei had hampered in his learning? This was why Naruto spent all of the time that he had available, going over everything in his memory of his time at the academy that he had learnt under the tutelage of Mizuki and doing the opposite of that to see if that was better than what he was taught.

This was none more so apparent when Naruto went to his team's training grounds and started practising throwing some kunai with his left hand this time around instead of his right hand.

Immediately as soon as the metal projectile left the hand of Naruto, the blonde haired boy instantly knew that he was left handed and probably left footed compared to the right handed and right footed that he was led to believe.

Despite the throw being one that wasn't as good as what he could do with his right hand thanks to the years of determined practice that Naruto had gone through to get his throwing capabilities to a sub-standard level, Naruto knew that he could easily get the art of throwing kunai down to a better level with his left hand in a short amount of time compared to what he had done with his right hand for the past several years.

Sine Naruto had a one set mind when it came to training and this made that his skills in the one area of which he was training to drastically improve to levels that people would have initially thought impossible.

Now Naruto's skills with kunai throwing had grown now so that he could hit a target whilst on the move as long as the target was still. While this might not be a big feat in the eyes of even a genin, considering from where Naruto was before in throwing projectile skills it was a miracle.

Another thing that Naruto had found out from the false advice that Mizuki had given him during his time at the academy was that you didn't need to any knowledge to be a good shinobi; all you needed was to just have brute force and a better jutsu which would guarantee that you win.

This was definitely not the case however because as Naruto learnt with his first battle against the chunin from Iwa was that you didn't need to have the strongest jutsu in the world to win, all you needed was to use your jutsu in a better way than what your enemy uses theirs.

Finding out about how the sharingan worked and all of its abilities was something that made Naruto take his education seriously and sent massive amounts of shadow clones to learn anything and everything about being a shinobi, civilian and a man and what it all meant like for example the time when he lost his manhood.

Learning how babies were made was something of a real eye opener for Naruto as he hoped that Kushiro, when he she raped in an all but illegal fashion made Naruto hope that the milf used some form of contraception as Naruto did not think that he'd make any good of a parent right now as there were so many things that he needed to sort out and the money that he made was barely enough for him to live by, let alone for someone else to live off of as well.

Speaking of money, with Naruto now buying everything under a henge nowadays instead of doing it the way that people normally did it, he was now saving a lot of money. Despite Naruto not finding a way to make the rent and amenities that were in his name go down to what the normal price was, Naruto was now getting money so that he could spend it on some essentials of a ninja lifestyle that he was not able to properly afford.

This came in the form of kunai and shuriken that Naruto carried around in his pocket. Before, Naruto had to save up some money to get the kunai from the Konoha shops which sold him inferior quality metal all which Naruto had to skip some meals to afford the bare basics as a ninja.

Now though that Naruto had good quality equipment that wouldn't break on him because of the fact that rusted metals were used in the makings of the kunai, Naruto now had some weapons that he could use in conjunction with some of the jutsus that he had recently learnt.

This was none more so apparent when Naruto went to the library to pick out a book on that covered the basics of the wind element so that he could learn some new jutsus that his teammate would not know so that he would feel better about himself since he knew a jutsu that none of his teammates knew.

In the space of two weeks, with Naruto putting in a lot less time compared to what he put in to learn the **Fuuton: Fudangan no Jutsu (Wind Release: Air Bullet Jutsu) **Naruto, the blonde haired boy had learnt two new jutsus to add to his repertoire

These jutsus were a little easier for Naruto to learn now that he had completed the tree climbing exercise which allowed Naruto to give a much better estimation on how much chakra a jutsu would need thanks to the delicate nature of how much chakra you needed to climb a tree with too much being a failure as well as too little being a failure.

The first jutsu that Naruto learnt was the **Fuuton: Daitoppa no Jutsu (Wind Release: Great Breakthrough Jutsu.) **In laymen's terms, it was just a massive gust of wind in a general direction that if, used by a strong enough ninja was powerful enough that it could knock down trees.

When reading about this jutsu, Naruto immediately saw other uses for this jutsu as he guessed a good guess that this jutsu would be able to repel all kinds of attacks except fire ninjutsu's since he knew what they could do as he had been on the end of a combined wind and fire ninjutsu thanks to his teammate Sasuke.

While the next jutsu that Naruto learnt was one that was not too distant from the second wind ninjutsu that Naruto learnt, there certainly were differences that made this jutsu one that was worth learning.

The major difference between this and the **Fuuton: Daitoppa no Jutsu (Wind Release: Great Breakthrough Jutsu) **was the fact that this one didn't do as much damage in the direction it was sent. Add to that how the jutsu required more control rather than brute force made it a jutsu that Naruto wanted to learn.

The major reason for this was how that Naruto could combine it with his kunai and shuriken that he threw so that the metallic weapons could sail through the air with more power behind them which would make their cutting efficiency.

This jutsu was called the **Fuuton: Reppusho no Jutsu (Wind Release: Violent Wind Palm Jutsu.) **When Naruto threw the kunai from his holsters in his left hand now instead of his right one and used it in combination with the new wind ninjutsu, Naruto watched in fascination as the kunai went through a tree before getting most of the way through a second one before it got caught.

Despite Naruto learning quite a bit about ninjutsu thanks to the book that he had read at the library, that area of a shinobi was not the area that Naruto excelled at the most when it came to progressing his skills as a ninja, no it was nowhere near as good as what Naruto had progressed in his taijutsu.

Thanks to Naruto sticking to the dieting planner that the first girl that he actually liked and could consider friend material had made, Naruto was making progress in his taijutsu that even someone like Gai could teach a student in terms of speed, power and stamina.

Before Karin had gotten Naruto onto the food plan that she had made, Naruto's body was anything but pretty. In fact, if a girl was horny and got Naruto to scratch her itch, the moment that Naruto got naked in preparation for the act of adulthood, it was likely that said girl would lose all forms of being turned on would dissipate at the sight of Naruto.

Naruto's health problems were not only on the outside of his body as the blonde haired boy was also suffering from all kinds of diseases inside as his lack of food which was only fuelled by the poor choice of food only caused Naruto's health to deteriorate even more.

The future osteomalacia that Naruto was going to suffer from weak bones that would deteriorate and break at even falling over if he did not get his act together, once Naruto started getting some high calcium milk into his system this quickly alleviated itself and Naruto's body, thanks to having the Kyubi sealed inside of him was kicking into high gear and repairing Naruto's body into one that would have an advantage as a shinobi.

The way how the Kyubi did this for Naruto was by storing up all of the calcium inside his body and waited until Naruto went to sleep and numbed his body by shutting off the nervous system temporarily and snapped off parts of skeletal system and using the calcium to grow hole bones in a matter of hours compared to how long it took Naruto to heal his broken leg.

That was a funny thing; if a doctor watched the way that Naruto was growing his bones over a night they would think that the Kyubi was some using some super powered medical ninjutsu to grow bones. If that had been the case then don't you think that Naruto would have had a perfect body his whole life and not only recently?

No, the way how the Kyubi was getting his boy upgraded as if he was a robot from some science fiction book was because the Kyubi was sending the calcium to a bone, latching the calcium onto it so that it could get an imprint of Naruto's DNA and see what it should be making a bone into and what the peak performance of a bone would be.

Then when that was done, the Kyubi would sever all of the ligaments and muscles that connected from said bone and made an incision into Naruto's leg to which the bone came out of the leg, but not before getting vaporized by the Kyubi's chakra so that Naruto wouldn't know that it was the Kyubi that was helping him as he didn't want to have to answer questions along those lines.

The thing that made this all the better for Naruto was the fact that since the Kyubi was a part of the Juubi a long time ago, it had information that some of the other tailed beasts didn't know it had since the Kyubi had the most amount of knowledge and power thanks to having the most amount of tails.

The part of knowledge that the giant demon fox was using know was the knowledge of what the slug based Bijuu, the Rokubi used in when it created the Shikotsumyaku blood limit or as it was otherwise known as the Dead Bone Pulse Kekkai Genkai.

Using the information on how the Rokubi made its blood limit so that Naruto had his bones as strong as what a member of the Kaguya clan who had not activated the bloodline.

While the Kyubi could have given Naruto the full ability of the Kaguya clan so that Naruto could pull the bones out and regrow them in an instant, this was something that he didn't do as the Kyubi didn't want to give Naruto a freebie that in the future, Naruto would no doubt use against him in the attempts to have full control over his chakra.

If someone had measured Naruto's weight from when he met Karin to when a month had passes since Naruto had learnt his tree climbing exercise, they would know that Naruto's weight had drastically increased. In fact, the blonde haired boy's weight had increased so much that he was almost double the weight of what he was before.

Despite Naruto gaining a lot of weight, it was not as if there was an ounce of fat on his body as he was a shinobi who had the Kyubi sealed inside him who purged Naruto's body of any excess fat and sent it out of Naruto's waste management system like all of the other unnecessary things that wouldn't improve Naruto's body.

While a normal human body would any of the excess stuff of a varying nature that came into its intestines via the stomach and place it in the fat category for it to be pushed out of the system at a later date, Naruto's body was different in this aspect as the Kyubi, instead of storing this as fat, manually forced it out of Naruto's body so that he wouldn't have anything that didn't contribute to making the body work at peak performance.

There was a side effect to having this done inside his body and it was not a pleasant one, though it was one that was manageable, it was still one that Naruto would not like having. This was that since the Kyubi was forcing everything that Naruto ate that didn't contribute to the body's overall success meant that Naruto had to go to the toilet A LOT.

Each night when the Kyubi would fix up Naruto's body, which I might add left no scarring on Naruto's body to show that anything was happening, the Kyubi would do a few of the smaller bones inside of the body or do a big bone of Naruto's. At the moment, the Kyubi had currently done all of the lesser needed bones that held Naruto together like the fibula that made up the legs along with the ulna that made up Naruto's forearms and the jawbone which allowed Naruto to eat and speak.

If you even thought for a second that the only way that Naruto's weight was going up thanks to the new bones that the Kyubi was putting into Naruto's system, then you are dead wrong.

The other way which a smaller proportion of Naruto's body weight was coming from was his muscles, yes that's right; the anorexic Naruto was now gaining muscles thanks to his newfound knowledge and his body getting the proper nutrients that it needed to function, in this case protein.

With Naruto hording out the general library of Konoha thanks to his extended use of the **Kinjutsu: Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Forbidden Jutsu: Multiple Kage Bunshin Jutsu) **meant that Naruto now knew how muscles worked and how they got bigger, stronger so that they could move faster and pack more power behind kicks and punches.

Naruto, who was conscious about his health, as soon as he felt that his arms and legs were getting sore from the working out he did, stopped as he didn't want to hurt them bad since he had nowhere near enough money for him to pay for medical expenses as he knew that they were expensive.

Once the blonde haired boy found out that when the muscles started to hurt it was them telling your mind that they needed a break so that they could rebuild so that they got stronger so that the next time they wouldn't suffer the same pain as last time, Naruto's training increased tenfold.

Now knowing that when the muscles wanted to give out was a good thing and not a bad thing that meant that Naruto should stop for the day, Naruto now pushed on through that minor pain barrier and kept on training.

This meant that Naruto was now getting actual results from his training as his muscles were growing larger thanks to the increasing demand that Naruto was putting on them.

When Naruto looked into the recently purchased mirror thanks to the use of the transformation technique, one would see that Naruto's bod had drastically changed and it was all thanks to the diet plan that Karin-chan had made up for him.

Before, all you would see was just bones nearly protruding from the skin and Naruto's skin having a not so healthy complexion to it. Now when Naruto looked in the mirror to judge in his new appearance, his skin was much more vibrant than what it once was.

The biggest difference though was the fact that Naruto now had muscle on his body and it was making more and more of a difference in the way how he looked. Since Naruto was having no body fat on his body, it made the definition of the muscles that he had absolutely perfect and showed them off in a good way in every bit of detail.

Despite not having many muscles which were things that took quite a lot of time to build up Naruto's body was easily the best looking one out of everyone that was his age since the no body fat highlighted his definition and would make girls change their delusions of grandeur with Sasuke and move them onto Naruto instead.

It was then that the jinchuuriki of the Kyubi no Kitsune remembered an incident that he was involved with his raven haired teammate Sasuke Uchiha.

**Flash back**

_Thinking that it would be best not to say anything that would make Naruto not want to tell him where he learnt the wind ninjutsu so that he could learn some more from that same place that Naruto got them from. Funny thing was that Sasuke never thought about going to the library because he thought that it didn't hold any valuable information._

"… _Naruto would you tell me where you learnt the wind ninjutsu from?" Sasuke said in his best polite tone whilst it still being nonchalant in nature. It was then that the mind of Naruto started going as he thought about what he should do in this situation._

_On one hand Naruto could refuse his teammate where he learnt the ninjutsu from and keep it too himself, but that would make Sasuke even more broody and to be honest, it was something that was getting on Naruto's nerves as he didn't like it one bit that Sasuke was complaining about not having something when he still had a lot more in life compared to Naruto. If there was one thing that Naruto hated more than anything it was spoilt children._

_On the other hand though, if he decided to allow access to the place that where he got the jutsu's from, then it would make Sasuke hopefully not want to steal any more ninjutsu's from him since he had his own to use._

"_Fine, come with me after today's training session is over and we will go to where I got the jutsu's from." Naruto stated in an even tone to his raven haired teammate._

_When the end of the training came Naruto, with Sasuke following beside him went to the library. When Sasuke saw that Naruto was going into the library, his face still kept the brooding look on his face. On the inside he was wondering if the library actually contained any useful information that would be worthy for his goal._

_Walking over to the genin section, Naruto quickly did this so that none of the librarians would see him and kick him out which would make Sasuke curious and the questions that Sasuke would demand the answer to were questions that he was not willing to answer._

_Going over to the book that had got Naruto started on elemental ninjutsu, Naruto picked up the book about going from genin to chunin and placed it inside the hands of Sasuke. "Hear, read this the whole way through and it will tell you all that I learnt from it." Naruto stated before he walked out of the room not even waiting for the thanks that Sasuke might have said._

_It was actually no surprise to Naruto that Sasuke didn't even bother to say thank you to Naruto when the jinchuuriki of the Kyubi gave the book as Sasuke was used to getting all of these things for free with no need to pay people back because of him being a spoilt clan heir who practically got whatever the hell he wanted and got it with ease._

**End flashback**

Naruto hadn't paid any attention to the training that either of his teammates were doing because he thought that it was not needed as Sasuke would be sure to boast any ninjutsu that he learnt so that he could say how much better he was than what Naruto was.

It was at this time that the blonde haired jinchuuriki dismissed all of the reminiscing thoughts and got ready for his new day, wondering what it was going to involve.

Getting out of the shower, Naruto placed on all of his clothes and looked at himself in the mirror. Now that Naruto was using shampoo for his hair and some conditioner in his hair because of using the **Ninpou: Henge no Jutsu (Ninja Arts: Transformation Jutsu) **to buy things, meant that Naruto's once heavily spiky hair was now gone and was much flatter in comparison to what it once was.

Where Naruto's hear was once so bushy that it stuck out in every direction and in massive clumps of hair, the blonde jinchuuriki's hair was now nowhere near as bushy and just hung by gravity and just had a look of plain, well-kept blonde hair.

Once Naruto was satisfied with his appearance, he went into the only other room in his house and pulled open the cupboard doors so that Naruto could get his daily intake of energy and nutrient to fuel his body via the protein shakes and power bars that made up all of the edible contents of his morning diet; combining this with some high calcium milk, Naruto was getting his body stronger and better suited for the ninja lifestyle.

With all this done, Naruto went to the training ground in which he would go with his sensei and team to get a new mission for the day, only this time Naruto had the hopes that his plan would net the team a C-ranked mission.

**Time skip**

3 hours later and Naruto was sitting in the same training ground with Sakura and Sasuke waiting for his sensei to come so that his team would have a chance for team 7 to go and get a better ranked mission.

It was then that there was a plume of smoke that covered the shape of a human and when the smoke dissipated, there was the sensei of team 7, Kakashi Hatake standing there right in front of them.

It was then that the customary shout of "You're late!" came directly from the pink haired girl that made up team Kakashi shouted loudly as if expecting that her shout would make her sensei come on time next time around.

Ha-ha, silly girl, she should know by now that her sensei would not be coming on time unless it was something that he considered important and since she was a genin, there was not much important going on in her life concerning Kakashi's eyes.

"So sorry guys, this time there was a burst fire hydrant near the Hokage's office and I had to use my lightning manipulation to weld it together so that none of the water could come out." Kakashi said in what he thought was a believable tone of voice.

The sad thing though was that since Sakura hadn't had much experience in determining a lie, she believed her sensei because she trusted him since he was one of her authority figures.

"Right… anyway, how about we go to the Hokage's tower so that we can get a new mission for today?" the silver haired Jonin said to his three genin students with an eye smile being used to give them a condescending smile that stated "hahaha everyone had to D-ranked missions and you're no different."

The reason why Kakashi did this was because he saw the looks of contempt grow on the faces of his students; it was none more so apparent on Sasuke's face as he showed his anger through his emotions. Sakura was not much better as he could guess that she was worried about having her clothes dirty. Naruto on the other hand managed to hold in his distaste for the boring missions quite well although to a seasoned chunin or someone above, it was easy to tell that Naruto hated them just as much as his two other teammates did.

Walking through Konoha team 7 made their way to the Hokage tower and it was not until that Sakura looked around and didn't spot a leaked fire hydrant anywhere around; it was at this moment that Sakura rapidly turned around and pointed an accusing finger at her sensei.

"You lied! You said that you had to fix a faulty fire hydrant today and that's why you were late, I should have known you didn't do anything worthwhile, you probably were just reading your pervy book weren't you Kakashi-sensei." Sakura said in an accusing tone of voice which, like usual was very loud which drew all of the people in the street and their attention onto Kakashi, amused at what was going on in front of them as they all knew of the reputation that Kakashi had earned for himself being late.

It was then that the silver haired Jonin replied in usual Kakashi fashion by "huh? You say something?" all the while never lifting his head out of his book to acknowledge her. This was something that made all of the people watching the interaction between sensei and student was something that made them laugh.

Sakura for her part was beyond angry, she was livid and that made her turn her head around and huff in anger and walk faster to their destination, hoping to find a mission so that she could get her mind off of how her sensei had just embarrassed her in public like that.

**Hokage's Office**

When all of team 7 was standing in front of the Hokage, it was this time that Hiruzen Sarutobi started reading off of the paper in front of him that said what team 7's next slated mission was. "It says here that your next mission is to babysit Yojyu-sama's baby boy, grocery shopping in a local town and helping to dig up some potatoes." The Hokage stated as he watched the interactions of team 7.

Initially, Hiruzen thought that Naruto would have folded sooner and demanded a better mission much like that Inuzuka kid had done just a week ago but Hiruzen was surprised with the amount of composure that Naruto was putting on display.

It was then that Naruto cracked and finally started talking about getting a better mission. "Hokage-sama" when Naruto used that, it made the old man cringe as he wasn't sure whether he liked the new Naruto compared to the old one as the old one was so full of life and happy, it was as if Naruto was the exact replica of what his mother was like apart from the pathetic fan boy tendencies that Naruto had towards Sakura.

This new Naruto on the other hand was so much more duller in the way he expressed his emotions and just didn't exude the same unbridled happiness that he once did.

"I think we, as a team are more than ready for a C-ranked mission. When we were on our B-ranked diplomatic mission to Kusa and had to verse a seasoned chunin ninja and won the battle with just a little bit of help from Kakashi-sensei at the end, but even before that we were holding our own, even beating a chunin that was throwing around high B-ranked and low A-ranked Jutsus at us and we were winning at the time weren't we Sasuke?" Naruto questioned to his male teammate.

Said male teammate nodded as he caught onto the speech that Naruto was using to try and persuade the Hokage into giving their team a better mission that would allow him to test his newfound sharingan on an enemy whether it was bandit or ninja.

Amused at the way that Naruto was trying to sway his decision making, the Sandaime Hokage decided to get into a battle of words with Naruto and if Naruto could convince him, then he would allow the team to go on a C-ranked mission. Besides, they had Kakashi as their sensei, what's the worst that could happen?

"Oh, you say that you had the battle completely under control you say… then what about how you Naruto suffered a broken leg during the mission Naruto, care to explain that?" the Sandaime said with an amused look on his face as he looked on at the blonde haired boy try to get out of the situation he had just put himself in.

It was then that Naruto, someone who always had a good quick wit when it came to saying a something back in reply; now that he had more information inside his head than anyone in his year apart from Sakura and used this to his advantage.

"Personally, I think that that only proves my point even more so as it shows that as a team when we are faced with a small case of adversity, we power on through the tough time and get the mission completed just like any chunin or Jonin would do." Naruto stated as he was using the natural charisma that he had and getting people to see his way of view and get them to follow his beliefs.

Shocked and stunned at the words that Naruto had used to fuel his side of the argument, Hiruzen looked like he had just seen a ghost of Minato come and possess his son and tell him exactly the right words to say.

Iruka, who was standing there beside the Hokage, helping the man with the missions, was about to say something about Naruto needing experience in doing more mission before they could request a C-ranked mission, but hearing how Naruto talked about how he could pass through the pain barrier of a broken leg and still fight and win against a chunin was something that told Iruka that Naruto was ready for another mission.

Looking at the new Naruto, Iruka wasn't sure what to think, on the one hand he liked the new Naruto a lot in how he was maturing ever since that incident at the abandoned shack when it came to him learning about how he had the Kyubi sealed inside him. The new Naruto was much better suited to the life of a ninja now that he had mellowed out a little and put some more information into his brain and by the looks of it, he was using quite well.

The flipside of this was that Naruto was becoming more and more shinobi like which meant that he would eventually have to kill and the maturing Naruto could easily not find killing that hard since he had had a hard childhood and this was something that the Kyubi could take advantage of and turn Naruto into someone totally different from what he once was.

Doing the right thing at the time; Iruka kept his mouth shut and his opinions to himself as he watched how the Sandaime spoke to team 7 about their new mission to the land of waves.

"Okay, I'll understand" it was these words coming from the Sandaime Hokage that brought all of team 7's attention onto the aging man and they hung onto his every word in the hopes of hearing that they got a better mission.

Somehow managing to keep the pipe that was lit in his mouth whilst speaking clearly, Hiruzen Sarutobi started speaking to the genin team along with their sensei that was in front of him. "I will allow you to take on a C-ranked mission." Hiruzen said as he mused what the outcome of the mission would be. Although he knew that if anything serious happened then Kakashi could deal with relative ease.

As soon as Hiruzen said this, he motioned a hand so that the chunin doing guard duty would allow the client of team 7 to come into the room. It was then that Kakashi Hatake and the three genin that made up his team were greeted with the sight of a drunken old man walking in with not much stability in the way he entered the room as he had to rest on the wall as he took a few massive gulps of the liquor from the bottle.

To Naruto's eyes the amount of disrespect the man was showing was ludicrous and if Naruto had been in the Hokage's shoes when the man entered drunk and practically off of his feet, well Naruto would have been highly insulted and could very well possibly deny a mission.

Not voicing his opinion because Naruto guessed that it could possibly go bad when it came getting the mission as they had not left Konoha yet so anything was possible, Naruto waited patiently for the mission to start so he could get some more experience under his belt.

"What is this bullshit? I hired ninjas, not some wet behind the ears brats. I mean look at the short one, is he even old enough to go to your ninja training school let alone even be a ninja?" Tazuna wildly questioned as the alcohol in his bottle sloshed around as he tried to stand up although that was hard since he was absolutely wasted.

While Naruto had been growing rapidly thanks to the influx of nutrients that his body so desperately needed, Naruto growth spurt was not due to kick in for another few months so that meant that Naruto had to wait awhile before his height started evening out to what a boy his age should be.

It was fortitude to the blonde haired boy's impressive emotional patience training which allowed Naruto to not rush out straight forward and try and attack the client for the mission. That did not mean though that Naruto was not above making a snide comment to his dictator although the snide part about it was directed at Tazuna. "Hokage-sama, if we kill this retard's family it won't count as mission failure right?" Naruto questioned in a tone that made Kakashi and Hiruzen know that it was a bluff because they all saw the look in Naruto's eyes which was none too different from when Naruto would get caught with some evidence in his hands that he had just done a prank.

Deciding to get in on the joke since he was a Hokage who never got tired with getting fun out of whoever it was in front of him, whether it be genin, chunin, Jonin or a civilian client. "Yes Naruto-kun, if you do that, it will not go down as mission failure since Tazuna has only hired your team to protect himself only, not his family as well." Hiruzen said with a hidden smile on his face that Kakashi only caught.

For Iruka, someone who did not see the twinkle in Naruto's eyes was shocked at how Naruto could have changed so much and wondered if it was that the Kyubi that was affecting him and turning him into someone who was not afraid at the prospect of killing and that it was slowly turning Naruto to the dark side.

Both Sasuke and Sakura were shocked as to what Naruto had just said as they didn't realise that Naruto was joking when he said this although Sasuke quickly schooled his facial expression and put it back into the nonchalant – brooding one that he normally used.

For Tazuna though, it was a whole different kettle of fish as he was thoroughly scared about what the little blonde kid had just said about killing his daughter and grandson and made a mental note to not say anything bad and remind his family not to irritate the blonde. Sadly this thought was lost as the man who was heavily intoxicated on alcohol forgot about it to warn his 7 year old grandson.

Taking another swig of the alcoholic beverage that was in his hand, Tazuna started saying stuff about who he was and about the mission as if they couldn't read the scroll that the Hokage, who was still sitting in the room I might add had just given them.

"I am the master bridge building expert Tazuna" at this point the grandfather paused so he could gather his bearings as he was seeing two of Sakura at the moment. "Once I have returned to my country I will have all of you protect my life with yours while I complete the bridge." Tazuna said to the group of four ninjas that he had paid to protect him.

"Very well then, we will meet you two hours at the front gate of Konoha to go and complete the mission ok?" Kakashi asked to the client who only nodded in his drunken haze and backed out of the room clumsily, almost tripping over.

It was then that Naruto commented on who his first client on a mission that went outside of Konoha. "That man… I hope this mission ends quickly because I don't want to spend much time around him at all." Naruto said to his two teammates who both nodded as they equally didn't like the guy that questioned their status as a ninja.

"Right then, team 7 go home and get packed for the mission which considering the scroll here, it says that we will be gone for about a month." Kakashi said with a smile on his face as he wanted to see how his students reacted to finding out that they had to spend a whole month with the drunken old man.

The groan that came from all of them was music to Kakashi's ears as he shunshined out of the room to go pack.

**Time skip**

It was not that hard for Naruto to pack all of his clothes and all of the other things that he needed for his journey to wave country. The first things to go inside the bag was his multiple pairs of the same clothing that made up his outfit and went straight into the bag all crunched up in the hopes of saving space.

The next thing to go into the bag was all of Naruto's toiletries and all of the other things that Naruto found essential to a good mission. Once that was done Naruto got onto the part that where he would pack the stuff that would take up the most space and need two or more bags thanks to his major appetite.

That was his food and it was something that took quite a lot of preparation. If it was not for the four storage scrolls that Naruto had bought then it would cost a lot to transport all of the food that Naruto needed to it to sustain his body.

The big thing that made Naruto mentally weep was how much money the amount of food costed. The amount of food that Naruto had bought costed enough so that it was almost half of what his mission was paying him. This was before the fact that Naruto had to pay tax which in the end made it around about 60% of his total mission earnings went to food.

Once that was all done, Naruto went down to the Ichiraku ramen bar so that he could have a snack and have a conversation with Ayame and Teuchi about what was going on in their lives at the moment.

It was then when Naruto walked up to the ramen stand that Naruto spotted Ayame walking out of a back alley way somewhat near her father's restaurant. Upon closer inspection on the part of Naruto, the blonde haired jinchuuriki noticed that the girl that looked down on him as if he was her little brother was limping and had a black eye.

Concerned about the fact that someone might have abused Ayame in more ways than just physical, Naruto rushed with speed that only someone with ninja training could manage and got to her side to see if there was anything that he could do to help her.

Doing her best to school her emotions like what the ninjas did, Ayame tried to keep a cool, calm and collected facial expression so that Naruto would hopefully buzz off after getting the hint. The thing that Ayame forgot at a time like this was that when Naruto got word of when someone inside his circle of friends and people that he looked up to as if they were family were hurt, it was as if Naruto was a machine and took no for an answer until he got the information on what he wanted.

"Ayame-neechan, what's wrong?" Naruto questioned with more emotion in his words than what he normally did as it was someone important to him that was hurt and he had still not gotten proper control over his emotions.

Trying to feign some ignorance to the situation at hand, Ayame casually responded to Naruto with a little bit more of an edge in her voice than what she normally used with the boy that she looked down upon as if he was her little brother. "Huh, oh, it's you Naruto, don't worry about Ayame-chan, nothing's wrong alright. Now go and train with your team or get ready for a mission, whatever you have to do since I know you have become very busy since becoming a genin." Ayame said as kindly as possible yet whilst still adding the dismissive tone in her voice so that Naruto would get the hint.

Taking the hit to the chest and feeling guilty since he knew that ever since he became a genin and had started to take more missions around the village to pay for things, Naruto had been spending less and less time at the Ichiraku ramen bar. "Sorry about not coming here more often Ayame-chan, but I have been extremely busy these past two months with missions and training and other things. In all seriousness though, what is wrong with you? You look like you just got beaten up by a civilian man or something." Naruto pressured on as there was something about this situation that felt wrong to Naruto and it was as if there was a premonition telling him that he wouldn't like the outcome of the argument that he and Ayame were about to have.

With the of having just recently had a period which made her antsy and not wanting to talk with people and making her anger rise inside of her although it was not directed at anyone in particular, just the fact that it was ready to lash out at someone that probably didn't really deserve it.

Not to mention that since there business revolved around Naruto quite heavily since he ate 9-10 bowls in one sitting, Ayame and Teuchi had relied on Naruto to fuel their income quite heavily; when Naruto stopped coming here as often, it left them in a bind financially, to the point that Ayame had to do some unsavoury things that no woman would like to do voluntarily, but since it was necessary for money to pay the bills, Ayame, now that she was nineteen, not too long ago had started doing shifts part time at a brothel to gain some extra money.

The last client she had had to deal with was someone that was a too aggressive and when she wanted him to stop, he did not and was a bit too forceful in the way that he ended his experience with Ayame.

This whole anger was festering inside of the ramen waitress' stomach and when she had started having a conversation for the person that was surrounded in why she had to do these things; all in all, it was quite easy in the end for Ayame to shift the blame of why she had to sell her body onto Naruto.

"There's a reason as to why I'm like this Naruto! And none of them are answers that you want to hear Naruto." Ayame said in a tone that indicated that she had finally lost what little control over her emotions she had.

Taken back by the words and tone of voice that the brown haired girl had just used at him, Naruto softly spoke up to hopefully shed some light on the situation at hand. "I know that they are probably things that I don't want to know but I feel as if I should know them to solve whatever problems you're having." The blonde haired boy softly said to Ayame who just looked at him with a bad face.

The reason why that facial expression was a bad one was because Naruto had a natural ability in which he could make people around him happy and it was nearly impossible for someone to be truly angry with Naruto, the fact that she was and that it was his fault, although Naruto did not know that he was the cause of it all made the ramen waitress cringe as she was feeling major amounts of guilt right at the moment.

"Fine Naruto, if you want to know so badly why I have all these bruises and why I'm limping, well since I have a few hours off thanks to daddy, let's go to a place more private then where we are alright." Getting a steeled nod in determination even though he knew that the information he was about to receive was not going to be great, Naruto pressured on through and followed Ayame to her house.

Once the two were sitting down face to face on the couch, getting down to the serious discussions immediately so that she could go and get ready for work shortly and her father would be none the wiser about what his daughter did for a little bit of extra money.

"Naruto, do you know why you're hated so much around the village?" Ayame questioned tersely as she couldn't remember if Naruto had said that he did know why he was hated around the village. Slowly but surely, Naruto gave a terse nod saying that he did know about the Kyubi.

"Very well then, now we don't have to beat around the bush and get to the main reasons. Naruto, do you honestly think that having the kid who has the Kyubi sealed inside of them is a person that is good for business?" Ayame questioned to Naruto who just looked conflicted as it took him awhile to answer the question.

It was then that Naruto finally realised that it was not only him that was affected by the giant fox sealed inside of him. Now that he knew that other people suffered albeit not as much as him, Naruto, for the first time in his life felt truly miserable about himself, the fact that he had caused his precious people so much pain and suffering made it only compound on Naruto just how bad it was to be the Kyubi's jinchuuriki.

When it was just him that was affected by it, it wasn't so bad for Naruto as he truly didn't know how bad it was because as the old saying goes, _ignorance is bliss _and that was the thing that Naruto had been coasting on his usual optimism about how it would just get better when he earned the respect of the Konoha populace.

Now though, there were other people that had to suffer along with him as well and Naruto was someone that wasn't willing to risk the safety and wellbeing of others just for his selfish desires.

"So um, Ayame-chan like, what can I you know do to help you and your dad get better financially so that you don't have to do anything undesirable?" Naruto questioned and the way he spoke showed that he was not good with words when emotions were thick and his mind was clouded by said emotions.

Sighing as she knew the words that were coming out of her mouth were going to be harsh, Ayame continued on because she didn't want to have to say what she was going to say to someone as kind as Naruto. "Honestly Naruto, if we didn't take you in and allow you to buy your food from our shop, I wouldn't have had to sell my body a couple of times to pay for the rent. If you didn't come to our shop, then more people might come so that we can actually live properly.

I never wanted to do any of the things that have happened recently but because of me and my dad's caring nature we have had to make a lot of sacrifices so that you can live happily Naruto." This statement from Ayame about how she said that she had had to sell her body out just to get by really drove home that he was not the only one that was suffering from being associated with the giant fox demon sealed inside of his stomach.

Doing the only thing that came to his mind when Naruto tried to think of the best way possible to fix the problem that the Ichiraku family was having, Naruto, with tears freely coming down the sides of his eyes, said the last words that he would ever say to the ramen waitress in a long time, if not for ever.

"I'm sorry that I've been such a bad person for your business Ayame-neechan over the years. I am sorry that this has all happened and I never wanted anyone to feel the effects the same as what I have for the past 12 years. This will be the last time that you ever see me and I wish you all the best and hope that you don't have to do anything bad ever again sister." Naruto said with tears running freely down the sides of his face as he struggled to keep all of his emotions coming to the surface. With all of his thoughts said to the recently turned adult, Naruto gave the woman a kiss on the lips and left as fast as he could, going to his house so that he could let out his emotions without anyone seeing him at a time of weakness.

**30 minutes later**

"Where is that stupid fool?" Sakura angrily called out because for the first time in the history of team 7, there sensei Kakashi was here on team and the only thing that was holding them back from completing their first C-ranked mission was Naruto and the fact that he wasn't here.

Sasuke too was angry just as much as Sakura although the raven haired Uchiha had seen that Naruto was trying to become more punctual as a person and would always come on time to their training sessions, even if no one else would show up at that time. For his teammate to be late meant that something was up.

For the boy who didn't have much contact with others though it was by his own admission, to have someone like Naruto who continued to pester him; Naruto had wormed his way into Sasuke's heart no matter how much the boy tried to deny it. Despite this emotion though, Sasuke would never try and ruin his image by speaking up about Naruto.

Kakashi too had taken notice of this and thought about what he knew about Naruto, coming to the conclusion that his student was in some kind of trouble as the silver haired Jonin knew that Naruto wouldn't intentionally been this late if it had been his choice. With this in mind, Kakashi's mind whirled around the idea that his sensei's son might be in trouble, Kakashi quickly made amends so that he could go and find out what was wrong with Naruto and quickly so that they could go onto the mission in store.

"Sorry you three, but I'll be back shortly with Naruto so that we can get onto our mission." Kakashi stated quickly, not even bothering for a response from either of his two students or the client, Kakashi used the **Ninpou: Shunshin no Jutsu (Ninja Arts: Body Flicker no Jutsu.)**

Thanks to the fact that Naruto had no sorts of barrier seal around his house to prevent people from shun shining into his house, it meant that Kakashi didn't have any trouble getting into Naruto's house and see what was wrong.

Using his enhanced smelling capabilities thanks to his ties with the dog summoning clan, Kakashi quickly located his student and could easily smell the salty smell of tears along with hearing the movement of water and rushed to see if Naruto had been hurt or anything.

Opening the door to Naruto's bathroom, Kakashi spotted Naruto sitting in the shower with the water going over him as he cried to himself in the corner whilst resting his back up against the ledge.

Thanking that at least it wasn't any sort of physical pain that Naruto was suffering through although knowing from first-hand experience that emotional pain was easily possible to be worse; Kakashi walked into the shower and turned off the cold water tap which broke Naruto out of his delirium and looked up with tear stained eyes at his sensei.

"Naruto, what is going on, we have a mission that we should be on at the moment and I come and find you in the shower crying, what is wrong?" Kakashi said as calmly as possible because he didn't want to see Naruto suffer emotional pain like he went through as a kid.

Doing his best to valiantly quell the tears that were in his eyes, Naruto sighed and got up to speak with his sensei. "Sorry about that sensei, I just learnt some really harsh information and it just took me quite a bit to get over it. I'm sorry and it won't happen again." Naruto stated fairly emotionlessly as he stopped the tears coming out although there was a few coming down.

"Right, now Naruto, I need to know whether or not whatever it was that made you like this will affect your performance on the mission and whether or not you are emotionally ready to go onto the mission" Kakashi said as he knew that Naruto would want to go onto the mission as it would be something that could take his mind off what had happened to him.

With a determined expression on his face, Naruto schooled his emotions and stood up so that he could take the towel that Kakashi had outstretched for him and dry himself.

Thanks to a quick fire jutsu from his sensei, Naruto was still in damp clothes, although they were not sopping wet like before and this made him be able to walk through his tiny apartment and not leave heaps of water that would rot the floorboards.

It was then that the voice of his sensei entered his ears. "Now Naruto, I know whatever it was that happened must have been hard for you to handle, when we are on a mission though, you might want to talk to me about it so that you can get it off your chest." Kakashi said in a soft tone that he hoped comforted Naruto as best as he could because he wasn't use to situations like this.

Thankful for the gesture that his sensei was offering, Naruto nodded and quickly grabbed his pack and walked back over to his sensei but not before hanging the towel up so that it could dry.

"Thanks Kakashi-sensei, can you please use the that teleporting jutsu so that we don't have to go all the way to the gates because that could take a while." Naruto questioned his sensei who only nodded and placed his hand on Naruto's shoulder and the two disappeared in a plume of smoke.

**With team 7 and Tazuna**

As soon as Naruto and Kakashi arrived at the front gates of Konoha and made their presence known, it was then that Sakura, not even thinking that Naruto might have gone through something traumatic and just rattled off in her usual loud tone of voice.

"Naruto-baka! Where have you been? We have been waiting just over half an hour for you to get here!" the pink haired girl all but screamed which, directed at Naruto was enough for all of the people in a 15m radius to here and made them listen intently to the conversation to see what the demon host would do.

"Sakura… shut up." the blonde haired boy said in an unusually cold voice that took Sakura by shock for a second.

It was then that since Sakura was a fairly spoilt girl with her childhood friendship Ino not helping it as much, thought that with Naruto having feelings for her, if she demanded what she wanted, she would get the answers that she sought.

"No Naruto! Do you know how badly this could affect our mission record; Sasuke-kun might not be able to do another mission for a long time since you are so selfish that you would hinder the chances of Sasuke-kun." Sakura said in a tone that easily made anyone around her know that she was angry.

Clenching his fists because this entire tirade that Sakura was doing was making Naruto remember the things about Ayame and how he was hurting those around him that he cared about. This was the catalyst for Naruto to become a much more darker person in life as while he would not kill people mercilessly like what Orochimaru would, Naruto would now not be adverse to killing someone compared to what he was like before.

This also meant that the way that Naruto started speaking was also more threatening when it came to sensitive subjects like the one that Sakura had just delved into. "Sakura, you will be getting just as much information out of me about what happened recently compared to if you asked your precious Sasuke-kun to go in full detail about how great of a big brother he has." Naruto said coldly to Sakura who didn't fully grasp the concept of what Naruto was telling her.

Though, Kakashi and Sasuke certainly did get the message that Naruto was trying to give: "What happened today is taboo in my eyes and I will kill you if you bring it up".

It was then that Sakura, wanting to know more about her crush decided to ask Sasuke about Itachi so that she had more information that could hopefully sway the raven haired Uchiha in her direction. "Hey Sasuke-kun, what was your bi…" it was then that whatever Sakura was going to say was stopped by the fierce glare that her crush was giving her.

"If you want to live past this mission Sakura, I suggest you shut up or otherwise I will have to cause an accident." Sasuke said just as icily as what Naruto had said before.

Shrinking back into her dress as much as she could, Sakura wanted to know what she had said wrong that had made Sasuke much more angry than what he was before. It was then that what she was thinking about was cut off as the drunken man that she was hired to protect was speaking to Naruto and her blonde haired teammate was having none of it.

"Where do you think you have been boy? I could have been home with my family and building my super bridge but no… you had to be selfish and make others have to suffer from your actions." The drunken man said as his booze sloshed and struggled to keep his balance.

That was the wrong thing to say to Naruto and the boy made sure that the old man knew exactly how he felt on the situation. "My offer still stands about your family Tazuna was it? So I suggest that you watch your mouth or there will be the deaths of your family on your guilty conscious for the rest of your miserable life. If you don't want this to happen then I suggest that your mouth stops moving." Naruto said with the coldest tone he had used so far in all of his life and it was one that scared Sakura to no end as she still had delusions of Naruto soon reverting to the orange wearing idiot that he once was.

Looking at everything that had just transpired in front of him, Kakashi sighed and hoped that the mission could go quickly and end as soon as possible because he was not sure how he was going to survive it if it didn't start getting better.

* * *

><p><strong>Tell me how I did with Ayame's character and what you think I did good or bad. I think that I did it well and this is realistic (well in the Naruto universe and this is something that could easily happen in the manga, but since Naruto (manga) is happy happy fun fun, well no serious issues are going to addressed into the series).<strong>

**I know Naruto's sense of humour is a bit off when it comes to his interaction with Tazuna. I would think that a smarter Naruto, combined with his quick wit should be able to create a much better threat rather than just running up to the client and beating them up like canon Naruto did.**

**Don't worry, Naruto will not actually be killing any client's he is just bluffing to get him to be a bit more respectful towards ninja as he needs them more than what they need him.**

**If you haven't guessed already, I'm slowly trying to turn Naruto into a young Orochimaru albeit without the evil streak inside of him, sure he won't be pretty boy hero like Jiraiya, but he'll be more like antihero Orochimaru esque.**

**Give me some tips on whether his transformation is going well or if I should turn it down a bit.**


	9. And she talks like June

**To all of those who were critiquing about how I did the whole Ayame subject, well I agree with you. It was the only way that I could think of to do this and yet still make it remotely realistic. Sorry if I have made it not realistic enough for you.**

* * *

><p>Tonight was the second night that team 7 had outside of Konoha on this mission. The first day nothing eventful happened as the Kakashi led team managed to get through the day without a hitch.<p>

Tonight was also the night that Naruto was going to talk to his sensei and get off all of the emotions that surrounded him and Ayame off of his chest as he had read in a book that it was better to get them out in the open rather than keeping them bottled up inside.

Once both Sakura and Sasuke had gone to sleep, Naruto got out of his recently acquired sleeping bag and headed off towards where his sensei was sitting on a rock so that he could speak to him about the things that were going on in his life.

"Hey Kakashi-sensei, is it alright if I sit down here with you?" Naruto questioned to his sensei as he didn't want to be rude when he should probably be sleeping right at the moment.

With a nonchalant eye smile that Naruto could barely see through the pitch blackness of the night sky, Kakashi spoke up although not loud enough as to wake up either Tazuna or his other two students. "Sure" the silver haired Jonin said to Naruto and moved over a bit so that Naruto could also sit down.

"I am sorry sensei for having for you to see me in my time of weakness, I will try to keep my best composure for the rest of the mission but what I learnt two days ago was not something that can easily be forgotten." Naruto said as he tried to explain why his sensei had found him crouched in a shower with cold water pouring down all over him.

"Maa, that's alright Naruto, everyone goes through some tough times in life so it's not just you going through some problems right now, what matters though is how you get back up from your setback and make it as if made you stronger not as a ninja but as a person." Kakashi replied to his student as best as he could with his limited people skills when it came to people as young as Naruto.

For the silver haired Jonin, it was as if he was in a trance as he was remembering a time when he had been asking his sensei, who coincidentally was also Naruto's father just as hard questions and wondered how his sensei managed to give good advice because for him at the moment it was very awkward.

"Thanks sensei, that helps me a lot. I guess I will take your offer in telling you about what had happened to me two days ago." Naruto said as he truly did appreciate what his sensei was doing as to Naruto, Kakashi was a more hands on teacher like when he healed Naruto's leg compared to what Iruka was like and it was something that Naruto preferred as he hadn't had much contact with adult role models

Sighing as this was something that was tough for him; Naruto steeled his emotions and started speaking to his sensei. "Kakashi-sensei, two days ago I came to the realisation that I was not the only one that suffered thanks to having the Kyubi or being close to someone that did have it sealed inside of them. I thought that it was only my problem to deal with and that none of the people close to me would have to suffer for being friends with me." Naruto said regretfully as maybe if he had known about it earlier, things might have happened differently.

Allowing Naruto the chance to elaborate about what he was talking about, Kakashi waited for Naruto to finish speaking so that he could give Naruto a better reply.

"I had no idea that a shop that allowed me to eat at their bar would suffer because other customers wouldn't come just because they didn't want to come near me." Naruto wistfully said as he wished that to be true although he knew from firsthand experience that nothing in life was ever easy and if it was then there was sure to be a catch.

"I didn't know that they had suffered so much financially that sometimes they had to choose whether allowing me to eat or for themselves to eat. But most of all, I didn't think that Ayame" this was news to Kakashi as every time Naruto had spoken about the lady he always used the –chan suffix on the end of her name.

The reason as to why this happened was because Naruto felt that the emotions that he was feeling would ease themselves if Naruto tried to distance himself away from the Ichiraku family as much as possible. Pausing for the slight hitch in his voice, Naruto continued on speaking to his sensei.

"But most of all, I didn't think that Ayame would have had to do some unsavoury things to get more income into the family business." Naruto stated morosely as he certainly wished that it hadn't come to Ayame doing something like that.

Now Kakashi didn't have to be one of the bet ninjas in Konoha's forces to decode what Naruto truly meant with such a statement as he knew that prostitution industry was flourishing in Konoha as it was a way for ninjas to release some tension and stress from their bodies and the ladies were only too happy to allow them to do that. Not to mention that civilian men would also like to do it just for the raw satisfaction of having sex.

"In the end we came to a mutual agreement in that I wouldn't come to their shop so that they wouldn't have to suffer because of my selfish actions although I do wish that it did not have to come to this conclusion." Naruto stated with a sigh as he liked going to see the ramen serving family because they were first people outside of the Sandaime Hokage that actually took an interest in he as a person.

It took a moment for Kakashi to think of the right thing to say and even then he didn't even know if what he was saying was the right thing for the situation at hand but it was the best that he could come up with in such a short amount of time.

"Naruto what you've told me is somewhat like death in a sense." At the incredulous look on the face of Naruto, Kakashi chuckled silently inside of his mask and started speaking to get his point across.

"This may be hard to grasp Naruto but they are moving on into a direction in life which should possibly make them happier as they will have more money and be able to buy some of the necessities in life that they couldn't thanks to the Kyubi." Kakashi said Kyubi specifically didn't want to make Naruto's mood go from bad to worse.

"This will be tough for you to go through Naruto but it is like death of someone close to you that means that you will mourn the good times that you have had over the course of your life but in the end you will move on and do other, more important things in your life.

Naruto I know that this may sound harsh but for some doors to open, other previously open doors must close in order to make way for the new doors." The silver haired Jonin said as he watched Naruto intently, waiting for a sign of emotion.

Ironically, for Naruto, the words coming from his sensei were actually really helpful as with Naruto's previous personality, whenever he was down in the dumps and would ask someone for advice or someone would just offer to cheer the Kyubi container up, they always said the thing which was the quick fix band aid solution instead of doing the surgical like treatment that Kakashi did which was the long term solution in Naruto's mind.

Having had his stress released by a considerable margin, Naruto thanked his sensei for the conversation as it had helped him a lot even though Kakashi wasn't sure whether Naruto would be perfectly alright for the mission though he hoped that nothing too drastic would happen like what happened the last mission they undertook.

**2 days later**

Thanks to Tazuna being a civilian, it meant that team 7 was limited to a walking pace, one which an old, unfit drunken man that was swaying around quite a bit would be able to keep up with, this meant that the three ninjas were making little to no movement whatsoever in comparison to the speeds that they could have travelled had the drunk not been with the group.

In the mind of the raven haired Uchiha, the boy was getting increasingly agitated as he had been expecting at least some form of battle with some inept mercenaries but to no avail, there had been none of the sort fight break out although that was soon about to change.

"Umm Kakashi-sensei, do they have ninjas in wave country?" Sakura questioned to which Naruto silently snorted as he thought that the person who was said to be the smartest out of their year; it was something that Naruto felt that she should already know, this did not stop him from paying attention as Naruto wanted to know the answer to.

"No, not in wave country but in generally in most cases, while the country's customs and way of life are different, most countries will have their own hidden village as a sort of protection for their nation" Kakashi explained as he had been to quite a few of the hidden villages and realised that wave country was one of the only few places that didn't have a hidden village to support them.

With the conversation between his student now over, Kakashi now turned his attention from Sakura and onto the path where the silver haired Jonin noticed a puddle on the side of the road, knowing that it hadn't rained in the last few days, Kakashi instantly knew that it was a shinobi team that was trying to attack and this gave him the perfect idea as to what he would do when they no doubt attacked.

Coming out of the puddle, the two chunin from the mist village raced towards the sensei of team 7 with their dual gauntlet chain combination to wrap around Kakashi and hopefully off him as soon as possible.

This did not work out the way that they intended though as when they thought that they had killed Kakashi, the silver haired Jonin used the **Ninpou: Kawarimi no Jutsu (Ninja Arts: Body Replacement Jutsu) **at the exact time that the demon brothers tried to dispose of Kakashi.

Now had Naruto not gotten the message from the snake clan telling him that if he got better in certain areas then he would be able to join the clan, he would have not went to the library to learn about the ninja way and try and learn what he missed out on at the academy.

But that was the difference in that Naruto and this Naruto as the blonde haired boy was the first one to react as he jumped back to get more distance between him and the two demon brothers who were going for him next.

It was then that Naruto went through the hand seals for the jutsu that came naturally to him and called out the name of his jutsu as he put his hands towards his mouth.

"**Fuuton: Fudangan no Jutsu (Wind Release: Air Bullet Jutsu.)" **Naruto called out as he blasted a bullet of compressed air out of his mouth and at the slight gap in between his two enemies as he had purposely done this so that Sasuke could use this and break the chain. It was a wonder what the teamwork exercises that Kakashi had drilled into his team could do under pressure.

Doing the instinctual thing, the two chunin brothers from Kiri dodged the way that cost them the least amount of effort considering they thought that their genin opponent was being cocky in trying to take the two of them out with the one jutsu.

Sadly since they were arrogant since it looked like that they were battling against fresh genin from the looks that the pink haired girl was giving off and it was during this time that they forgot about the chain gauntlet on their arms as they dodged the attack.

This meant that Naruto's bullet of compressed air that he fired off had its target in sight and there was nothing that could stop it from hitting the chain. The force in which the wind release jutsu was so powerful that it broke the chain in half so that the demon brothers were now not connected by the metal link.

Having had enough of sitting back and allowing Naruto to take all of what he thought was his time to gain experience, Sasuke entered the battle and took Meizu out of Naruto's hands which was fine by Naruto as he saw this and rushed towards Gozu to take his attention away from helping his brother vs Sasuke and kept him focused on himself.

Engaging in a taijutsu battle was something that Naruto liked as it allowed him to get up close and personal to his opponent in which Naruto could use his size to his advantage and get too close to the enemy so that they were cramped and couldn't battle properly.

The same went for Sasuke as he was using his size and speed to his advantage along with his prowess in taijutsu thanks to the Uchiha's intercepting fist style and had the upper hand in his match.

Seeing that his two students had ruined any chance of getting the chunin to fess up and make a mistake in which would show him who their target was, Kakashi decided to end it there as he didn't want to have an injury since he could see that there was poison on the two gauntlet's.

With a little Raiton chakra enhancing his strikes, Kakashi dropped down from out of nowhere it seemed in the mind of Sakura and struck the two chunin's from the mist village in the back of the neck faster than anyone could follow which made Gozu and Meizu drop down like a sack of potatoes as their bodies couldn't handle the pressure of being sent to their brain which was overloaded and as a safety measure, knocked itself out as to hopefully save itself.

Sadly that did not mean that Kakashi wouldn't take advantage as he had sought out to tie the two up so that he could get some information out of them. It was then that the pink haired kunoichi's voice rang through the pathway.

"Kakashi-sensei you're alright!" Sakura exclaimed with happiness as she didn't know what she would have done if she had lost her sensei then. It was then that the kunoichi of the year asked a question that Kakashi hoped that she would have known without needing the answer.

"How did you manage to escape?" Sakura questioned with confusion as she didn't see anything to alleviate her worries when her sensei disappeared right in front of her very eyes. For his reply, all the silver haired Jonin did was glance in the direction of where he replaced himself with the log. _Oh, Kakashi-sensei used the __**Ninpou: Kawarimi no Jutsu (Ninja Arts: Body Replacement Jutsu)**_

_Tch, show off, I could of handled my opponent, but Kakashi just had to drop in and take away my battle. The good thing was though that he also did it to Naruto so that he couldn't get any experience as well._

_Sensei didn't have to do that as I was fairly confident in the fact that I could win my battle, oh well at least this time I didn't freeze up like that slight little hesitation I had in my last mission. _These were the respective thoughts of Sasuke and Naruto as they watched their sensei to see what he was doing as whatever it was; it was sure making Tazuna sweat quite a lot.

The unfortunate thing about what Kakashi was doing was something that none of team 7 were able to experience thanks to Kakashi being highly trained in the use of killing intent as it was one of the standard things that an ANBU office needed to know if they wanted to become a captain as it was a way of increasing the morale of your troops while it can just as easily decrease your enemies morale and make them not as efficient as they could be.

Since Kakashi had such good control over his killing intent, it was only Tazuna that was feeling the effects as he got stared down by Kakashi who was waiting for an explanation as to why there were people who were trying to kill him and that they were desperate enough to send ninjas to do the job.

Stammering, Tazuna did his best to gather what little control he had over his emotions as he felt as if he was scarecrow, only that he was a failing scarecrow and there was all these crows circling above wanting to take him down. "You're right; there is a super dangerous man after my life."

Hiding the fact that he was laughing at his client because he always used the word 'super'; Kakashi replied in his usual nonchalant tone of voice although one could tell that his eye was firmly directed on Tazuna to detect whether or not the man was lying as he spoke. "Super huh?" Kakashi replied coercing the information out of the bridge builder.

Not knowing that Kakashi was mocking him, Tazuna sighed and spoke up. "Yeah, you probably already know who I'm talking about. He's name is Gatou." The grandfather said to Kakashi which invoked a look of shock from Kakashi.

"Huh Gatou…from that shipping company? He's said to be one of the richest men in the world." The silver haired Jonin said as he was astounded to find out someone so wealthy was after his client. This opened up a whole new range of possibilities in terms of who could be coming next.

Thankful that Kakashi knew who he was talking about; Tazuna started speaking again to shed some light as to why the filthy businessmen wanted his head. "Yes… officially he runs a large shipping company, but underneath the surface, he sells drugs and other illegal items using ninja and gang members to take over businesses and countries. He's a very nasty man." Tazuna said to which after he finished speaking, he took a swig from his bottle of sake.

Continuing from where he left of before, Tazuna started speaking once again. "It was about a year ago in that Gatou turned his sights onto wave country. Through money and violence he quickly took control over the whole entire country's shipping industry which is our biggest asset as a nation.

Gatou now has a complete monopoly on all of the country and business that goes through the place. The only thing that he has to fear is the completion of the bridge since it would end his tyranny on the way people could get things to and from wave country.

The wave country is super poor and even the daimyo of the land is super poor, that's why we don't have enough money to pay for a B-ranked mission." Tazuna said as if he was obscenely pessimistic that he was going to die in the next few minutes.

It was then that Tazuna saw that his speech was not going to well and tried another way to get them to help his cause. "If you abandon the mission now I will surely be killed. But don't worry about it, if I die, my cute 10 year old grandson will just cry for a few days." Tazuna said as he tried to guilt his way to the safety of home with the ninjas guarding him.

It was then that Naruto had had enough and made his way into the conversation as he hated the way in which Tazuna was trying to guilt what a harsh childhood his grandson would suffer if he died when he didn't even know the meaning of tough child hood.

Thanks to Naruto having a quick tongue and smart mouth, now combined with his intellect Naruto was able to reply with acidic like replies that won conversations. "It will be a good test of character and it will also be good character building for the kid. You're speaking to ninjas, people who have much harder lives than what you civilians could even dream of and yet you don't see us complaining about what life has dealt us plus, we all had to go through these things when we were young so it is not as if you can say that he is too young to go through something like that." Naruto said in a cold tone as he had never got along well with his client from the moment he had walked into the Hokage's office all drunk.

Now that he was lying on the difficulty of the mission, it just made Naruto mad and thanks to all the extra energy now in his body thanks to his diet, Naruto was letting Tazuna know of his feelings.

Sakura for her part was shocked that Naruto would so openly suggest traumatizing a child by the death of a family member that she could not even utter a reply to what her blonde haired teammate had just said.

Sasuke and Kakashi on the other hand were both in agreement with what Naruto had just said as they also had suffered a harsh upbringing and the thought of only hearing that your grandfather died was something that was totally minute in comparison to what they had gone through.

Shocked at what the blonde haired kid had just said to him, Tazuna rapidly tried to think of a way that would make the team of ninjas come with him to protect his home.

"Oh yeah, my daughter will also live a sad life cursing the village hidden in the leaves forever since they allowed her father to die." Tazuna said as he tried to dig himself out of the whole that he was in. Sadly for the man things didn't go as well as he had hoped.

Naruto, acting much like the clan that he was hoping to join in the near future, sensed that the man was very much afraid and struck for the kill. "She will not even know that you made it to the leaf village in the first place because you could have just as easily died by someone sent by Gatou to kill you. That is more of a possibility then us failing to protect you.

Looking at your facial expression, you know this as well as we do, so how about you come up with a valuable reason as to why we should help you or otherwise as protocol states, we will be leaving shortly to inform of an incorrect mission ranking and your family will be forced to pay for a B-ranked mission as that is what this is now that there chunin from a hidden village that tried to attack you." Naruto said without much care in the world for what would happen to Tazuna or his family as he had never gotten along with the man and thought that this was poetic justice for lying and endangering the ninja that he had hired thanks to the botched ranking.

Having nothing on his mind to say in return since he was practically off of his face with liquor, the grandfather fell down to the ground and started crying heavily as he did not want to face the reality of everything coming down and crashing whatever little hope he had of returning his homeland to its former glory.

Impressed with the way how Naruto had handled the client, Kakashi nodded to Naruto who looked up to him as if he had done something right and was just questioning to see whether or not he did in fact do it right.

Sasuke on his part was cursing himself for not speaking up. Had he spoken up, he might have been able to swing the mission into his favour and get his team to go on the mission and hopefully battle more experienced enemies so that he could test out his recently activated sharingan.

Sakura for her part was both proud and scared at what Naruto had just done; on one hand she was proud because Naruto was able to stand up to a client when she knew that she wouldn't have been able to do that. On the other hand though, what Naruto had just done was cruel and wondered if Naruto would get worse as time went on.

Feeling some form of sympathy for his former client, Kakashi turned around and spoke to the crying old man to try and ease his conscious on the fact that he was condemning a whole country to a tyrannic rule. It was not something that Kakashi was unfamiliar with as he had been witness to a whole lot of things from when he was in the ANBU but it was never an easy thing to do.

"Tazuna-san, had you come to the Hokage and told him the truth about your situation, then he would have easily set up a payment plan in which the proper shinobi team could be assembled for the mission and that you could pay the cost of the mission over time as your village gets out of its depression, but since you chose to lie about mission rankings which is one of the most frowned upon things once can do to a ninja, this will be the termination of your contract with the hidden leaf village." Kakashi stated in a diplomatic tone which had been prepared as he was preparing for the worst in the event that it was he who became the next Hokage of Konoha.

Turning his attention from the man, Kakashi looked at his own team and started talking in a commanding tone of voice. "Now team, we will be heading now." And with that said, Kakashi leapt up into the tree line shortly followed by Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura as they started moving on their way to home at a much faster speed in which they were walking at the last two days.

Once the pace had been set for a while and that they had gotten into a steady rhythm, it was finally time that Sakura asked Naruto a question on her mind. "Naruto, don't you think that you were harsh on Tazuna? The old Naruto would have never done that, he would have tried to save them" Sakura questioned softly but started getting louder and louder as she neared the end of her sentence.

What Naruto did not know was that both Sasuke and Kakashi were listening intently as to what was going on as they wanted to know why Naruto said what he did.

It was then that the three members of team 7 got the reply from Naruto. "Recently, I have been going to the library quite a bit and I have been reading a book on what exactly the Hokage did because I still want to become the Hokage." It was then that the answer came to Kakashi although Sasuke and Sakura didn't know so Naruto had to explain in more detail.

"The Hokage is the person who has to do everything that is in the best interest of Konoha. For Konoha, it would be better if we didn't possibly lose four of our ninja especially with one being the last of his bloodline clan as Konoha would want for him to have children so that the power that the Uchiha once had was back up at full force compared to saving a different country from a tyranny which could possibly make us lose one of Konoha's elite Jonin." Naruto stated to which Sasuke and Sakura got what Naruto was saying but they also got the hidden message that sometimes you needed to make the hard decisions rather than the easy ones.

It was then that Naruto tried to lessen the mood by adding a joke. "Plus, at least I got us away from that drunken old man, I absolutely hated him and was thankful for getting out of having to spend a whole month considering how loudly he snored." Naruto said with a bit of a grin on his face as he could finally get a good night of sleep.

This was a statement that no one apart of team Kakashi could refute as the drunken old man snored so loudly that it was really hard to get to sleep, what made it worse was that thanks to the alcohol in his system, when he went to bed he was a sleep in a couple of minutes.

For someone like Kakashi who had trained to wake up at the sound of a pin drop, it was an absolute nightmare as he had gotten about 3 hours sleep over the last two days and was thankfully looking towards a larger amount of shut eye.

**Time skip**

Seeing as though he could give his team some indirect training without the fear of anything happening now that they didn't have a client to worry about, this was in the form of being the night watchmen through shifts.

Taking the last shift since he was the sensei of the team and since he had this power, he could make up decisions like this and not be questioned about them. This all culminated into Kakashi getting some sleep for the first time in several days.

Waking up the next morning at 5:30 in which he took over Sakura's shift to lead into start of the day in which they would make the journey from their campsite to Konoha.

Now that there was light coming into the campsite thanks to it getting closer and closer to the summer months, the silver haired Jonin now had time to right the report of the mission to send to Sarutobi about what had happened.

_The mission was going smoothly for the first two days until it was when I noticed a puddle on the third day that I knew something was up. It turns out that there was actually the demon brothers (some mist chunin nuke-nin) had been hired to take out our client and then I decided to see how the team would handle it without men and I fake my own death to see where the chunin attacked Naruto._

_Naruto then used a wind release attack and broke the chain of the two chunin. After that, both Naruto and Sasuke battled the two chunin via the use of Taijutsu. _

_In the end I apprehended the chunin and sent a message to you to get some ANBU to pick up the demon brothers and take them to prison._

_This is where it gets weird. The client then went on about how Gatou from Gatou shipping company was holding the whole entire wave country under a tyranny thanks to using illegal methods to create monopolies._

_When the man tried to guilt our team into taking the mission, Naruto spoke in a cold fashion to Tazuna about how the client dying would be good character building for the kid._

_When we left off for home, my female student asked Naruto why he did what he did because she was scared that Naruto was deviating a little too quickly from what he once was into a something somewhat akin to Orochimaru._

_Though Naruto said something that will ease my mind on comparing Naruto to Orochimaru. He said that he had been reading on what a Kage should do and Naruto did what was best for Konoha._

_I would like to request a few more missions that we can take on the road after making a stop in Konoha to pick the scrolls up so that I can see just how far Naruto is changing and whether it is a cause for concern and if I should do something about it._

_Kakashi Hatake._

After finishing writing the on the paper, Kakashi silently summoned Bisuke to take the message and deliver it to the Sandaime Hokage via the summons world so that Hiruzen could have knowledge on why the mission went haywire.

This was all done without Sasuke, Sakura or Naruto finding out as they were all sleeping like a rock although Naruto had not gotten control of his habit of moving around whilst he slept. Thankfully he was in a fairly tight sleeping bag which compensated for the moving around.

**An hour or so later**

Once all of his genin students were ready to go and that they had cleared the former campsite of any signs of life, team Kakashi made their way back home all so that they could get some more missions to complete as a team.

Arriving at the village, team 7 gave a greeting and a minute mission briefing to Kotetsu and Izumo as they were curious as to how their month long mission went and why they were back within a week with no injuries.

Once that was done the group of four ninjas made their way along the roof tops to the Hokage's office so that they could get the four missions awaiting them that would carry them on as preparation for the chunin exams that the silver haired man was leaning towards his team being able to compete in.

With one last final thing to say, Hiruzen allowed the team to go back outside after sharing a glance with Kakashi but not before speaking his mind. "Now I know that your client is awaiting for you so that you don't have very much time to waste so I can't get a proper mission report out of you but I expect a long and detailed one on all four missions including the one that you went on just before that got cancelled." Hiruzen indicated to Kakashi with a stern gaze.

Since the silver haired man had been used to receiving glances like that for such a long time since he usually came late to a lot of things. Inside the mind of Kakashi though, the sharingan warrior was trying to think of a way of getting out of writing the mission reports as it was a tedious thing to do and it was then that he came up with the idea that he could just ship them off to his three students under the pretence that it was a required skill needed before you could become a chunin.

All of team 7 was giddy about getting more missions that would mean that they got to spend about a whole month outside of the village. Even the more scared Sakura was excited as when she had realised that the failed mission meant that she was going to have to go home to her parents arguing all the time about the divorce settlement, she was not that happy.

Now though that she had a new way to get out of the village and go on a mission that hopefully not go pear shaped like the last two she had been on, she was very happy.

Sasuke was happy as this gave him more chances of finding some enemies that would hopefully give him some much needed experience when it came to battling as that was the aspect of his ninja abilities that the raven haired Uchiha needed to work on the most.

Naruto, much like his sharingan eyed teammate, also wanted the opportunity and was now not regretting his actions before as this hopefully would get him to fight a much larger range of opponents compared to what he was able to do on the wave mission.

With Hiruzen knowing that people who lived in Konoha would not be that fond of having Naruto as their form of protection, the Sandaime Hokage thought of a way to solve all of the problems in one go. That was to have Naruto's team be the one escorting an elderly couple from Konoha as they were on a holiday to the village hidden in the leaves and were on their way home.

Reading the first mission scroll, Kakashi hoped that this mission would be a standard one compared to what they had gone on just recently. With the information that was on the scroll now stored in his brain, Kakashi took command and ordered his team to go to the front gates in which they would meet with their client. "Alright team, since we are all packed from our last mission, we will be leaving right away." Kakashi stated with no room for dispute.

That was how team 7 liked it as they didn't particularly want to stay in Konoha for a multitude of reasons and they couldn't wait for the mission to get started.

**At the gates**

Once they were down at the main gates of Konoha, Kakashi spotted the old couple casually sitting down on the bench as they held hand in hand which clearly showed that they were happy and liking their time in Konoha.

It was then that the silver haired Jonin walked up to the couple and started speaking to them. "Hello my name is Kakashi Hatake and I, along with my students are going to be the ninjas that you hired, I hope that you are happy and are alright with that?" Kakashi said in a lightly questioning tone of voice.

This was just fine with the couple as it gave them some time to spend with children who were the ages of what their possible grandchildren could have been if their son had not died in the 3rd shinobi war.

Since they never had grandchildren to spoil combined with the fact that they were fairly well off, when the elderly couple went on holidays, they always made it a point to hire a genin team so that they could spend time with children as the ninja children generally were a bit more mature compared to what civilian kids of the same age would be.

It was the female civilian out of the couple that spoke up to Kakashi indicating that they were fine with that. "Yes, that is alright. I hope that your students are well mannered because kids at that age can be very unruly." The reason why last part was said was because on their way from their town in the south of fire country on the water's edge, they had the unfortunate luck in having to have the mighty Maito Gai as the Jonin-sensei, that mission was one that they would rather forget.

"Yes, my students are well mannered and will be happy to guard you in the event of a bandit or even some low trained ninja." Kakashi said in a tone that made the client's reassurance that they would be getting home safely go up. It was then that they noticed the three students standing a bit off to the left of the sensei who they guessed were their students.

Looking over at them, the elderly couple were instantly pleased that there was no signs of whack job tendencies in the team compared to the last team that they had the pleasure of doing business with. Those green spandex suits would cause horrific nightmares for many more nights to come, not to mention that sunset as well, it was nearly all too much and made Kumiko have a heart attack at the sight.

"Right then, how about we get the mission started then shall we?" Kakashi questioned to the elderly couple who smiled and nodded and got up with a slight bit of difficulty and picked up their bags so that they could finally get home.

After having gotten past Kotetsu and Izumo, team 7 along with their clients set out to the south of fire country as that was where their destination was at. Naruto seeing the trouble that the couple was going through thought that the mission would go faster if the two old people didn't have to lug around all of their luggage with them, that was why he called the proceedings to a stop and got out a scroll from his backpack.

Starting a conversation with the clients, Naruto started speaking. "Would you like me to seal away your luggage so that you don't have to worry about dragging it along yourselves?" Naruto asked in a polite tone as he felt that it was prudent to get more experience working with clients since the last failed mission.

The smile that was on the woman's face was one that Naruto was definitely not use to and felt uncomfortable. This was paramount when said lady walked up to him and enveloped him in a big hug. Releasing him from the confines of her chest, Kumiko spoke in a cheerful tone when addressing Naruto.

"Oh my, do you see hear Mizuno. These Konoha shinobi are such nice people. Back in my day, the ninjas didn't even offer to help the client and yet, the last two times we've needed ninjas we've gotten such great people. Even if the last group with that weird green spandex kid and his even weirder green spandex wearing sensei were total nutjob's who should be in the mental ward at the hospital, they were such nice people in offering to get us to Konoha quicker." Kumiko beamed as she definitely liked the treatment she was receiving from Naruto.

Kakashi for his part couldn't help but snicker at the way his client spoke of Gai, so much so that it made Kumiko turn on him. "Oh, you there what's so funny?" the elderly lady said as she was confused as to why Kakashi was laughing.

With an eye smile, Kakashi replied to the client, a client so nice that he had a hard time remembering the last time they were so outgoing and friendly. "Oh, it's just that I have to work with the nutjob, green spandex wearing sensei who needs to go to the mental ward on a regular basis and that, by far is the best description that anyone has come up with to describe him.

Not really sure what to say to that, Naruto and Kumiko turned their attention to the luggage in which the civilian of the pair watched how Naruto stored their luggage into the scroll before putting it into his back pack. "There, all done." Naruto said with a small smile on his face.

Wishing that she knew what Naruto had just done so that she could do it herself, the old lady grinned a big grin and gave Naruto what would have been a bone crushing hug had Naruto's diet not improved recently.

Scoffing at the attention that Naruto was receiving, Sasuke knew that what Naruto had just done was not special at all so he wondered why Naruto was getting so much attention. Oh well, that was something that he could ponder on later as now he had a mission to do.

**Time skip**

In the end Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke learnt a lesson on the mission that went for three days. That lesson was that in some cases, your mission does not have to have any excitement in them, in fact, most missions that were ranked as a C-class mission did not have many forms of excitement as they are mostly just for the security in case something does go wrong.

This was highly visible in the third ever mission that team 7 went on as nothing happened and most of the time was spent between the elderly couple trying to get to know the genin team. This was something that Naruto and Sakura liked as it got their mind off of the troubles at home and onto something better and more productive.

When they got the message that Sasuke was a very antisocial person in life, they stopped trying to speak with him and just spoke with Kakashi, Naruto and Sakura instead. For some strange reason in the eyes of Sasuke, he was feeling a pang of emotion that he had not felt in a long time. That was the feeling of watching people around him have fun and yet here he was by himself, although this time it was his own doing and it was something that Sasuke somewhat regretted.

With the unsealing of the client's luggage and waving goodbye, it meant that it was time to say goodbye and Naruto was the happiest he had ever been whilst on a mission because the clients to him were somewhat of a replacement for grandparents that don't have the weight of a whole village on their shoulders so that they could spend more time with him.

"Alright, now it's time to go towards where our next mission is." Seeing the surprised looks that he was getting from everyone around him, Kakashi decided to elaborate on the part that must have slipped by all of his genin. "What did none of you when we were in the Hokage's office pay any attention to what we were talking about?" Kakashi asked in a tone that said that they were in trouble.

Sheepishly, they all nodded showing that they hadn't paid any attention whatsoever. Pretending to be disappointed in his students as he knew that the mission briefings could get quite boring, especially when it was about a mission that had nothing really exciting since it was a miss ranked mission which meant that they had to go back to their village; this was something that gave Kakashi the perfect excuse to get out of having to right down the mission reports.

Using a bit of killer intent so that he didn't have to get into an argument with his team, it was then that the silver haired masked ninja spoke up. "For that you will receive a punishment, one that you will no doubt come to hate over time." The threat of giving off some sort of punishment that they were destined to hate was something that team 7 did not like one bit, even if they didn't know what their punishment was.

"You three will all have to write a highly detailed mission report explaining everything that has happened on all four of the missions that we will be going on." Kakashi said as he purposefully let the information slip that they would be doing four missions as he wanted to see the smiling faces of team 7 when he told them that they had to do four very highly detailed mission reports something that they would hate as he would become very harsh in the quality of the reports that he was handing in to the Hokage.

Once that was all over and done with it was Sasuke who asked what their next mission was. "Kakashi, what is our next mission going to be?" the ever curious raven haired Uchiha asked as he wanted to know whether or not he was going to test himself soon as he was getting a little restless from the lack of missions.

"Our next mission is near the border of the land of fire and the land of tea. At the moment there is a small group of bandits that have taken a few kids from some of the more wealthier families and are demanding money or they will kill the children. It's our job to go in and rescue the children while we also have to take out the bandits so that this doesn't happen again." Kakashi described to his raven haired student who nodded as he liked the sound of the mission as it was one that sounded as if it had a lot of action in it.

Naruto for his part was just as excited as he wanted to test his ever growing repertoire of skills against someone his own skill level as the last time he got in a battle, it was never one on one which was something that he felt that he needed practice in. The writing of the report was something that he just had to trade off to get more experience.

Sakura though was quite nervous as the mission sounded like it was something that might be a bit too much for the team but since Naruto and Sasuke were looking so happy, she didn't want to ruin it for them which would make Sasuke hate her and she wasn't sure what Naruto would do after what he did to that Tazuna man.

"Since we have to have the mission done by the week as that is the deadline, it gives us enough time to learn a new chakra control exercise so that you can use your jutsu's with greater efficiency than before. This is an exercise that should be especially easy for you Sakura since you have such great chakra control." What Kakashi decided not to mention was the fact that the only reason Sakura had such good chakra control was because she had so little of the substance.

This only fuelled Naruto and Sasuke on as they wanted to get better chakra control so that they could be the best genin on the It was that sort of rivalry that would only bring them further in their skills as a ninja.

Making his way over to the placid lake that they had decided to camp at, Kakashi decided to explain their new chakra control exercise. "Alright, what you are going to learn today is called water walking.

There is not that many differences compared to tree climbing except for the fact that the amount of chakra that you need to use to stand above the water is not a constant like what tree climbing is.

The less amount of ripples that go on the surface, the less amount of chakra and chakra control you will need to use to stay above the water. As you get more proficient at this, you will be able to conduct a battle on the surface of the water, the greater you are at this, the less amount of focus you need on the water so that you can focus on your fight." Kakashi lectured to his students as they all nodded as they wanted to get down to the training.

"Oh and you might want to roll up your pant legs Naruto and you all might want to take your ninja sandals as it could take a while to get them dry again." Kakashi explained the last piece of advice before he went back to the campsite to pack up all of the equipment so that they could leave once they stopped the water walking practise.

All of team Kakashi were giddy at the new training exercise because no matter how old you were, walking on water was something that never lost its appeal. Hearing that you could get so good that you might have to fight on water as if it was the land was fuel to the determination of Sasuke and Naruto as they wanted to get good enough to do that.

Taking the advice of his sensei to another level, Naruto didn't go out anywhere near as far as what Sasuke and Sakura were as he wanted to keep his clothes good. In the end Naruto only went into the water so that is was deep enough so that his entire ankle was covered in water.

And that was what team Kakashi did for their time at the lake. For Sakura, standing on a still lake was just as hard for her as it was standing on the surface of a tree. This was compounded by how she managed to stand up on the surface the first time she tried it. Since she didn't really have a reason to continue on once she had learnt since she was happy with where her skills as a shinobi were, Sakura didn't try and get even better at water walking.

The same though could not be said for Naruto or Sasuke though as the two spent all of their time on the lake as they tried to get more fluent at moving on top of the water.

For Sasuke, it took him an hour before he succumbed to having exhausted all of his chakra reserves and by that time he had gotten proficient enough so that he could walk around on top of the water but he had to have his full concentration on the liquid beneath him.

When it came time for lunch, the raven haired Uchiha got out two ration bars as he wanted to get lots of energy inside of his body so that he could keep training. By the end of the day Sasuke got good enough that he could run as fast as he could on land on water though he hadn't gotten any better in having his attention on something else as he moved.

Naruto's way of progressing in the training was the opposite compared to Sasuke. It took Naruto a little bit longer compared to his male teammate but where Sasuke had to stop because he had exhausted his chakra reserves, Naruto didn't have that problem at all.

Since Naruto did not have anywhere near the objections to eating something as long as it made him stronger, Naruto did not have to take long to eat his 5 ration bars quickly so that he could get back to training.

By the end of the day Naruto had gotten very proficient in walking on the surface of water. So much so that Naruto was able to take a small distraction such as the bubbles coming from underneath the surface thanks to the fish below and still not have any signs of falling over.

**The next morning**

Once packing up early in the morning and having their breakfast which consisted of a ration bar for Sasuke and Sakura with a drink of water to wash down the foul taste of the bar and Naruto having 4 ration bars and a protein shake to give his body the required amount of nutrients to work properly, team Kakashi set out to their next site which would allow them one more day of water walking training before he gave them a mission which he would supervise to make sure that nothing would go wrong.

That night when they set up camp at the sea this time as Kakashi felt that the ripples that came from the waves would be a good way to get even better at water walking, Sasuke and Naruto expressed desire to go and train as soon as they got there.

This request was immediately denied as Kakashi didn't want to have one of his students suffer from hypothermia thanks to the cold temperature of the water since they were only just getting out of winter and it was still extremely cold.

The next morning though the sun was up early and its rays of sunshine were shining brightly and Sasuke and Naruto's training could not be held back any longer by Kakashi.

The breaking waves were something that Sasuke did not know how to deal with at first when he tried to get it perfectly first go. He even had trouble with the ripples that the waves that had broken long ago.

Naruto on the other could do it quite better than Sasuke thanks to him learning it yesterday instead of getting his speed up like what Sasuke did. This gave Naruto an advantage in getting his speed and stability up faster than Sasuke since he could stand on the water with more ease compared to Sasuke.

At the end of the day though since Sasuke had enough time to learn about standing on an unstable water surface, he caught up to Naruto in that regard, the same happened to Naruto as he managed to catch up to Sasuke in using his full speed on the water now instead of only being able to move at a civilian walking pace.

Sakura, since she was confident in her abilities as she didn't like to train as it messed up her looks because of the sweat chose to sit on the beach in a bathing suit in the hopes of impressing Sasuke instead of training.

In Kakashi mind, he was trying to think of a way to make Sakura train as he initially thought that seeing Naruto and Sasuke get better than what she was would spur the girl onto training. Instead his plan had backfired as Sakura was in his mind coasting off of the fact that Naruto and Sasuke were getting so much better so quickly that she didn't need to do any work.

For Kakashi he didn't want to force Sakura into training as that was what he had gone through as a kid and it brought back unwanted memories of going through harsh training at a young age all because your father made you so that you could be the best shinobi.

Having done all of the training that they could have possibly done to get them into the best shape for the mission, team Kakashi made their way to the village so that they could complete their first hostage rescue mission.

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><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

**Are you happy with the way that I did the incredibly small wave arc? I wanted to do it differently to just making Naruto go through the exact same thing as the manga.**

**I hope that the way that I did this was unique and that you all like it. Please review and tell me what you think of the chapter.**


	10. But tell me

**If anyone would be able to help me, it would be much appreciated. At the moment I am writing the next chapter and it has a part that is fairly medical knowledge heavy. Can someone tell me what it is where someone suffers from having too much energy inside their body which is not getting let out causing them to suffer from symptoms which are similar to those that suffer from ADHD.**

**I know that it can't be ADHD which I will have Naruto suffer from as that is caused by things inside the brain and not a having to much energy which the body can't handle properly. If someone would be able to point me into the right direction into where I could research things like this then I would be very grateful.**

* * *

><p>Since none of his team knew how to fight without a light source, Kakashi had to make plans according to this fact. Despite not knowing how to fight when it was dark, this did not stop Kakashi from planning for his team to fight in low level light conditions as he knew that no bandit would have that ability either.<p>

Now we find our attention at where Naruto and the rest of team Kakashi were at as they were going through the plan that they would abide by for the mission. "Now we will go over the mission plan one final time to make sure that you all know what you have to do alright?" Kakashi said in a questioning tone although all of team 7 knew not to back talk to the mirror ninja when he was serious.

"Right, the first thing that will happen is that Naruto and Sasuke will take out the five bandits that are holding the three children hostage and when they fall down to the ground, Sakura you will run in and get those kids out as safely as possible okay?" all of team 7 nodded as the jobs that they had been given were the ones that they felt comfortable doing as Sakura did not feel right when it came to killing people.

Naruto knew what he had to do as nothing other than instant death would suffice as there were the lives of the innocent on the line and he would not put his selfishness in abstinence against killing so that he could watch some children die right in front of his very eyes. This was a sentiment that was also felt by Sasuke as he didn't want other children to have to go through emotional pain albeit on a much smaller scale to what he had to deal with.

"After the alarm goes off that the hostage holders are not alive anymore, the ring leader / s will come out and that leaves Sasuke and Naruto to take out the remaining people while Sakura gets the children out to their parents so that they are safe." What Kakashi didn't say during his speech was the fact that he would be keeping constant vigilant surveillance over all three of his students as he didn't want any of them to suffer something that would cripple their ninja careers.

With the affirmative nods coming from his team, Kakashi ordered them to get ready so that he could individually use the **Ninpou: Shunshin no Jutsu (Ninja Arts: Body Flicker Jutsu) **so that his team could get past the bandits and into position.

Once everyone was in position and ready to carry out their mission's orders, Kakashi used the hands free radio system to initiate the plan. It was go time and the bandits that were trying to make some easy money by stealing a few rich kids had no idea what was coming their way as they got swiftly taking out by the flying pieces of metal courtesy of Naruto and Sasuke.

Thanks to Naruto finding out that he was actually left handed compared to the right handed that he had always been led to believe thanks to Konoha's ninja academy, Naruto now had the proper means to control the power behind his throws and make them deadly accurate.

This was paramount in the way that the three kunai that Naruto had thrown went sailing through the air at speeds that only a chunin level ninja would be able to spot let alone dodge towards his enemy and sunk into the flesh right in the neck where it would be instant death.

Naruto was not having an easy time as he had just done pre-empted killing but there was only one thing that was going through his mind as he watched the corpses fall to the ground and that was: _snakes kill, snakes kill, it's survival of the fittest and I did what needed to be done._

Sakura for her part did pretty well at seeing the bodies drop to the ground and quickly ran towards the kids and got them to stop crying as she took control over the situation and issued them towards safety.

Jumping down in front of Sakura, both Naruto and Sasuke heard how there was a noise and then about a minute later rushing towards where the two male genin were standing were about roughly 10 bandits. The thing that both shocked and excited Naruto and Sasuke was that there were two familiar headbands on the enemies head's. These were headbands of the leaf village which had a slash through the middle of them indicating that they were missing Nin.

With a look shared between the two, Naruto and Sasuke instantly knew what the other was going to do and this meant that they also knew what to do so that they could thin the numbers of the enemy's forces.

Going through hand signs, Naruto and Sasuke called out their respective jutsu's. "**Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu (Fire Release: Grand Fireball Jutsu)**" Sasuke shouted as he put his tiger hand sealed hands to his mouth and released an even bigger fireball compared to what his previous best was thanks to his new training in water walking.

It was much the same with Naruto as he definitely did not expect for his wind release ninjutsu to be as powerful as he was. "**Fuuton: Fudangan no jutsu (Wind Release: Air Bullet Jutsu.)** This was why there was a look of awe on both his and Sasuke's face as they watched their combined masterpiece decimate the enemies.

It was unfortunate in the eyes of the genin missing ninjas that there was only four people that lived from the fireball that had just claimed the lives of six bandits and with everyone else that survived sustaining fairly significant injuries to all over their bodies.

Not being one to not take advantage of a situation that he was in, Naruto charged at from what he could guess was a missing ninja from the Akimichi clan at his fastest speed since he knew that they traded power for speed and that was what he was trying to use to win his battle.

Not wanting to be outdone by someone that he now considered a rival since Naruto was rapidly growing stronger by the day and was catching up to him, Sasuke launched at his opponent who coincidentally was a member of the Hyuga clan and from what Sasuke could tell, he was a branch member as he had his forehead protector around his forehead not wanting to display his swastika shaped Juinjutsu.

_Finally, I now have someone that I can test my sharingan on, it's even better that this person is a Hyuga so that I can prove why my bloodline is so much better than their pathetic Byakugan._

Closing his eyes for a second so that he could gather up the necessary chakra to turn on his sharingan, Sasuke opened his eyes to show that the pupils had now changed from an obsidian black to a red backing with a black iris along with two tomoes in each eye.

Shocked that his enemy had a Dojutsu and the sharingan of all things, the Hyuga couldn't keep his calm façade as having a Dojutsu activated in front of him only compounded onto the fact that he couldn't activate his, thus being the reason that after his failed attempt at the chunin exams he left the village with his friend who also was an outcast of his clan.

"Hn… shouldn't you activate your Byakugan?" Sasuke said with sharingan eyes as he looked down to the person that he thought had the inferior Dojutsu. The sight of raw anger spreading across the face of his opponent was something that made Sasuke instantly know that his Hyuga enemy couldn't actually activate his clan's prized Dojutsu.

"Hahaha, you became a missing ninja all because you couldn't unlock some inferior second rate blood line? Allow me to show you what someone can do when they have a real Dojutsu." Sasuke proudly said as he channelled some chakra into his eyes which made them glow red.

Growling in anger at the insult, the 18 year old genin missing ninja that hailed from the Hyuga clan charged at the lone Uchiha as he only saw rage as he tried to take down the kid from the opposing clan.

**With Naruto**

Naruto for his part just before he was about to go into battle with the Akimichi remembered what Choji was like when he got called fat and went into blind rage until the person that called him fat was not moving. This gave him the clear message not to antagonize his enemy on his weight as it would make him run on adrenaline which would make him faster than normal and since Naruto would be relying on his speed to get the win, he wanted to have every advantage as possible.

Looking at the confident and what some people would call arrogant expression on the face of the Akimichi clan member, Naruto chose to use this in his favour as in life he was used to being underestimated in his fights and in life in general only for him to overcome these odds so that part of the fight was nothing new to Naruto.

Using his academy style cookie cutter taijutsu, Naruto charged in at his opponent who looked as if he was going to toy with Naruto. It was then that when the blonde haired boy got close to him did he truly realise just who his opponent was.

"Oh, I'm versing the demon, how wonderful is that, when I kill you and send your rotting corpse back to Konoha, I will be upgraded from a measly C-ranked missing Nin and into at least a B-ranked one." The rotund recently turned adult in the eyes of a civilian said menacingly as he dodged the punch coming from Naruto and countered with his own punch, this one though having much more power behind it compared to Naruto's.

Dodging the punch from the Akimichi, Naruto saw that he would get nowhere at all against an Akimichi since his punches didn't pack anywhere near as much force as what his enemy's did, this was why he pulled out two kunais from his kunai holster and held them both in a reverse grip and re-engaged his opponent.

Still being cocky at the fact that he thought that there was no way he could lose, the Akimichi kept at his new attack which was using his **Hijutsu: Bubun Baika no Jutsu (Akimichi Clan Secret Jutsu: Partial Expansion Jutsu)** using both of his arms to attack Naruto with as he was lazy in wanting to take the fight seriously since he guessed that it was Naruto's first real fight.

Naruto taking advantage of the sloppy attacking jammed the kunai in his left hand right into the right forearm of the Akimichi man. To make matters worse for the large man, Naruto was unconsciously channelling wind natured chakra into the pieces of metal. The slight augmentation of the blade's cutting ability made it so that the whole blade of the kunai went straight through the flesh and in between the two bones that made up that Akimichi's right forearm.

Howling in pain, the rotund man quickly cancelled his jutsu and brought his arms back to normal size so that he could prepare his next jutsu which would end the match as he thought that it was unbeatable thanks to the small space that he and the demon were fighting in thanks to the high cliffs surrounding them.

Doing his hand signs despite the immense pain that he was feeling in his right arm, the Akimichi called out the technique that he thought that would end the match.

Since his way of ending the match was a two-fold jutsu combination, the Akimichi man called out the first move. "**Hijutsu: Baika no Jutsu (Akimichi Clan Secret Jutsu: Expansion Jutsu)" **the teenager who was fat before called out as he now had changed his appearance into that of a sphere with arms, legs and a head instead of a human.

With done, the man called out the other part of his plan in killing the demon and getting heaps of praise from his former home. "**Hijutsu: Nikudan Sensha (Akimichi Clan Secret Jutsu: Human Bullet Tank Jutsu)**" the man called out as his arms, legs and head all came inside the sphere and charged straight for Naruto.

Dodging the large ball coming at him, Naruto looked around to see if there was anything that he could use for his advantage to get the thing to stop. Seeing the rocky cliff faces that surrounded him, Naruto came up with the perfect idea to win the fight.

Seeing that there was a point in which the two cliff faces that he and Sasuke were fighting in, Naruto put his plan into motion in getting the Akimichi to be permanently put to sleep.

Dodging the bouncing off of the walls of the cliffs on either side of him, Naruto purposely dodged by going backwards into the point in which the two cliffs met as he baited the rolling ball to where he wanted it to go.

When Naruto was in the final position that would spell the end for the Akimichi, Naruto waited for the right moment in which he timed his jump to near perfection as he jumped with the chakra enhancing his muscles and just got high enough to dodge the large rotund ball.

Falling down onto his feet as he faced the behind of the Akimichi ball as it neared the dead end of the cliffs, Naruto did his jutsu. Forming his hands in the snake seal, Naruto pushed them out from the core of his body as he called out the name of the technique. "**Fuuton: Daitoppa! (Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!)**" The blonde haired boy called out as he made the massive gust of wind generate from his hands and pushed it towards the ball making its speed increase exponentially.

That was why it was no surprise to Naruto though when the sphere of flesh collided with the cliff at such speeds that it created G-forces in excess of over 25g's. This was created by the sudden stop when colliding at a speed that he could not bounce off and had to take the full impact head on.

With the Akimichi not being able to bounce off the speed in which he was travelling at since Naruto had forced him to move at speeds that were not save thanks to his wind ninjutsu, when he collided with the wall and dropped down to the ground and cried out as he was in masses upon masses of pain.

This amount of horizontal G-force came with enough pressure that it broke the spinal column of the Akimichi man as he hit coincidentally, the toughest rock that the cliff was made out of and was definitely not going to be able to get up thanks to his injury.

Not wanting to take a chance even if his enemy had been defeated as he could later come to regret it with death, Naruto got out a kunai from his pocket and through it hard and fast and watched how the metal impacted with the windpipe of the Akimichi and watched him die within a few seconds after the impact with the wall.

Despite being able to kill, Naruto was still very squeamish when it came to death and knew that at the moment he would not have been able to kill someone up close and personal and he was grateful that he could end his match the it did as he didn't have to come face to face with his enemy.

Having some sense of misguided honour in his body, Naruto felt that he should give his opponent a burial, Naruto used his skill in being able to stand on the surface of the walls and he used this ability to place an explosion seal tag on the cliff so that the falling rocks could cover the body.

Had Naruto not used a little bit more chakra than what was necessary to trigger an explosion seal, there would not have been enough falling debris thanks to the strong minerals that were in the rock to fall onto the body of the Akimichi and cover him fully so that no one would be able to see him.

This was why it was lucky that Naruto, being a kid had a small case of pyromania inside of him like all kids do and wanted to have a big explosion. Once everything was in place and Naruto was a safe distance away from the radius of the explosion, he signalled for it to go boom with the rat hand sign and watched the tumbling rocks fall down onto the deceased member of the Akimichi clan.

**While Naruto was battling the Akimichi member**

Wanting to test out how good his sharingan was in battle, the raven haired Uchiha could think of no better way to do that than having a close range battle with the enemy so he could get accustomed to the way how he saw the enemy's movements.

This was why he, like Naruto engaged his branch member Hyuga in a taijutsu battle despite knowing that the Hyuga clan was supposed to be the best taijutsu using clan in all of the shinobi countries.

For the Hyuga, since he was a branch member and it was impossible for him to learn any of the clan's good techniques unless he actually managed to recreate them, he did not have anything to master when he was a missing Nin.

This meant that the only real training that he could do was to increase his speed, power and endurance along with his proficiency in the gentle fist taijutsu style. Since he could not get his hands on a set of weights as he didn't have much money thanks to having a comrade who was an Akimichi clan member, he did not have the means to go out and buy some weights to get stronger and faster.

This meant that he had to spend countless hours to get barely any results at all when it came to improvements as his body was at the limit in terms of muscle growth grew from quick bursts with large amount of resistance compared to long sessions with no resistance.

This combined with the fact that Sasuke's sharingan that slowed down the movements of the enemy, made it as if Sasuke and the Hyuga member had an equal amount of raw speed and that the person with the better taijutsu would win.

Feinting to the right with him jabbing forward with his right hand, Sasuke wanted the Hyuga to think that he was attacking with such a basic and straight forward move and underestimate him.

Then when the Hyuga did indeed do that, Sasuke would give a fairly powerful left hook that would take his opponent off guard. Well that was how the raven haired Uchiha planned things out in his head.

And that was how it went, Sasuke telegraphed such a blatant attack that his opponent got cocky and thought that Sasuke was biting off more than what he could chew in terms of opponents.

What the Hyuga branch member was not expecting was for him to get clobbered in the face with a left hook that he saw too late and didn't have a chance of defending against.

Growling, the Hyuga leapt back as he prepared himself mentally to take it up a notch and not give away such an easy free hit like he had just done. With new vigour running through his body, he tried to take Sasuke down by using the taijutsu style that he had developed when he found out that he couldn't use the Byakugan.

Like the gentle fist style that made the Hyuga clan so famous, this branch member was using a different form of damaging an opponent in close combat through the use of entering his chakra into the opponent's body and causing damage.

What he was doing differently though compared to what everyone who had the Dojutsu activated was that he was not going for precise movements to target the opposition's chakra network. No he was going for the major internal organs of the human body which would suffer just as much, if not more damage from having foreign chakra being injected into them.

This different style of taijutsu was not something that was missed by the prodigy of Konoha as he could tell that whatever the reason a Hyuga without a Byakugan activated trying to put foreign chakra into his system was not a good idea at all in terms of winning the match with him being the victor.

That was why the taijutsu style of the Uchiha clan, the intercepting fist was the perfect defence as it relied on the abilities of the clan's Dojutsu which made it as it the opponent was constantly telegraphing their moves to him so that he could prepare a good counter attack for them.

This meant that Sasuke had a better chance at beating this guy on a taijutsu level compared to say Naruto as he quickly deduced what the danger of getting hit whereas Naruto would just get it and see whether or not it hurt. Not to mention that he had a much better skills in defensive taijutsu compared to Naruto who mainly focused on attacking.

Five minutes later and there was still no clear cut person who had the advantage going by the facial expressions on the faces of Sasuke and his opponent, a Hyuga clan branch member. The two of them were both panting as Sasuke's endurance was slowly wearing down and the Hyuga was not much better as he constantly had to use chakra to fuel his fairly formidable taijutsu style.

Deciding to take it up a notch as he wanted to finish this battle sooner rather than later as his endurance wasn't that great, something that he vowed in his head to train to get better at lasting longer in battles.

Realising that all along in the battle, he had never even used an ounce of his abundant chakra reserves in comparison to all the other kids at the academy barring Naruto, the raven haired Uchiha decided that using some ninjutsu would be a good way to test out the sharingan as he hoped that it would make the enemy reveal some of his ninjutsu so that he could use them against him.

Jumping back, Sasuke went through a string of hand seals and called out the name of the jutsu that he had used the most in all of his life. That was the **Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu (Fire Release: Grand Fireball Jutsu.)**

Finishing his hand seals, Sasuke brought the pair of hands to his mouth and exhaled quite a large fireball although it would have been much more devastating had the sharingan warrior had some basic fire manipulation skills under his belt.

Expecting his opponent to dodge the fireball coming towards him, Sasuke watched with his red eyes to see which way he would go so that he could cut him off and use his plan to perfection.

Seeing him jump to the left as well as how his eyes did not leave the fireball that he had just made, gave Sasuke the confidence in that his plan would work. Using one of the basic ninjutsu's that the academy taught to their students, Sasuke used the **Ninpou: Kamawiri no Jutsu (Ninja Arts: Body Replacement Jutsu)** and replaced himself with a large rock that was only about 2m diagonally to the left and behind his opponent so that he could use the final piece of the puzzle.

Thanks to his newfound skills in his only element thanks to the test that he had read from the book that his rival had given him a month or so ago, Sasuke had more than one element that he could call jutsu's from and the boy felt that there was no better time to battle test the jutsu that he was confident that would be even better than his **Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu (Fire Release: Grand Fireball Jutsu) **since this was a jutsu that came from his element.

Since he was behind his enemy without him knowing, the raven haired Uchiha had the element of surprise and this gave him enough time to go through the hand seals and shoot his jutsu before the opponent could do anything about defending against the technique.

Being someone who liked to learn the stronger ninjutsu's first as he thought that it lower ranked ninjutsu's wouldn't work on someone like Itachi, Sasuke didn't bother learning the C-ranked techniques from the book that Naruto gave him.

No, instead of doing it the normal way, since he thought of himself as special, Sasuke went straight to the lightning manipulation section and picked up the first instruction which was to change your chakra into lightning so that it can light up.

This was a task that was much harder for Sasuke than first thought, in fact it was harder than learning the **Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu (Fire Release: Grand Fireball Jutsu) **as with that one he at least had a family member to guide him threw whatever he was having trouble with.

This though was a whole different kettle of fish as for the first time when it came to learning, Sasuke Uchiha was on his own. This did not stop the boy though as his determination paved the way for him to learn the ability in less than one month, something that was astonishing for most people although it was still not enough in the eyes of the last Uchiha.

As soon as he got that down, Sasuke went to learn a lightning jutsu as he wanted to have one in case he needed it on a mission where his two other fire ninjutsu's weren't enough. It was then that he got his hands on the **Raiton: Gian no Jutsu (Lightning Release: False Darkness Jutsu.)**

Since it was Sasuke's first time in using the jutsu and that he did not have the recommended amount of proficiency in lightning manipulation to use the technique at full power, the attack that Sasuke made to which he prepared to fire at his Hyuga enemy was nowhere near as strong as what it could have potentially have been.

Since this was his first time in using the jutsu in battle, Sasuke still had to call out the name of the attack and it was that that got the attention of the Hyuga branch member to turn around and watch how a bolt of lightning was coming directly at him.

"**Raiton: Gian no Jutsu (Lightning Release: False Darkness Jutsu)**" Sasuke called out as he watched the small bit of fear etch onto the face of his enemy before he tried to dodge the attack from Sasuke.

Despite the attack not being at full power, it was still powerful enough that when the inevitable happened and that the Hyuga could not dodge the attack in time, the lightning pierced through his rib cage and went through a lung which signified instant death.

Happy that it wasn't him that was on the receiving end of the jutsu, Sasuke also had the dream that instead of the Hyuga who was not important to him, it would be the cold, lifeless rotting corpse of his elder brother, Itachi Uchiha that was down there instead.

It was then that the voice of Kakashi ran into his ears and made the Uchiha boy turn his attention to his sensei, even if he didn't acknowledge than man as someone that was better than him. "Bravo Sasuke, bravo, you did well in that fight, I must say that I am surprised that you can use lightning release techniques. If I was to guess by the way that you did the jutsu, I would say that Lightning was your element instead of Fire the Uchiha clan is so famous for." Kakashi said to his student who didn't know what to feel.

Was his sensei trying to make him feel bad by saying that he was an outcast of the clan by having a lightning affinity compared to everyone from his clan having a fire affinity? Oh well that was something that he could think about later as he was tired from having used so much chakra in his fight and vowed when he got a free time to train, the first thing he would do was to increase his chakra reserves and stamina which went hand in hand as they fed off of each other.

Having a question on his mind, Sasuke spoke up wanting to get answers. "What was that big noise a while ago? Did you have to fight an enemy or something?" Sasuke asked as that was the only plausible explanation that he could come up with as he doubted Naruto could do that and there was no way in hell that Sakura could have managed to come up with something like that.

"Oh that, that was the culmination of Naruto's battle with his opponent." Kakashi said in his usual aloof tone as he watched Sasuke's face to see what would happen. He was not surprised when he saw the anger come in spades before it quickly disappeared into that of an arrogant smirk.

"Humph, if I hadn't wanted to test out my sharingan out and get better with it, I could have easily ended my battle faster than what Naruto did. So how did Naruto end his battle?" Sasuke wanted to know whether or not he missed the chance to _acquire _a new jutsu or two from the battle.

Not really seeing any downsides in telling Sasuke, Kakashi replied with the battle report. "Well Naruto's opponent was a former member of the Akimichi clan so he used his size in his attacks where he made himself into a giant ball and charged at Naruto.

When Naruto positioned him right where he wanted him and jumped over the ball and used a wind ninjutsu to make him crash right into the cliff with no way of slowing down.

Once that was done, Naruto threw a kunai through the throat of his enemy to finish him off." Kakashi said as he watched Sasuke's face form into one of annoyance at the fact that he couldn't copy Naruto's jutsus. Not being one to talk as he could be labelled as a hypocrite, the silver haired Jonin decided that he would wait for someone else to do it for him.

With an eye smile marring his uncovered skin, Kakashi spoke up. "Well now that you are done with your mission, how about we go and complete the mission since that's all we need to do for it to be completed.

Nodding, Sasuke and Kakashi made their way over to where Naruto and Sakura were at so that they could finish up and collect their payment for the completion of the mission. Once they had caught up to Naruto and Sakura who were receiving praise upon praise from the client's family as they could not be happier since they were now reunited with their family.

When the family offered to give the four ninjas hospitality in the form of a nice warm bed and quite a lot of food, you would have to be a fool not to accept it and since none of the team was completely retarded, they stayed the night and had some wonderful food and got a good night's sleep.

When the morning came and the group of ninjas parted way with the much more relieved family, it was Naruto that asked Kakashi-sensei what the next mission that they were going to complete was.

"Well our next mission is getting a fairly important scroll from the land of fire's border is with the land of tea and bring it back to the capital of the fire country so we have quite a lot of distance to travel considering were are closer to the land of rivers than the land of tea." Kakashi said as he looked at the scroll which gave him a description of the person that they were going to find and get the scroll from.

The journey from where they had rescued the few kids, to where they had to go was a journey that Naruto, Sasuke and Kakashi found easy since they had large enough amounts of chakra running through their system to sustain the tree hopping that ninjas did from destination to destination.

For the civilian born ninja though it was hard work considering the fact that she had nowhere near the same amount of as Sasuke let alone her sensei or even Naruto and had to constantly stop for breaks so that she could rest and regain some of her chakra supply before going on.

This made Sakura actually for once in her life become serious in her training as it made the girl want to make her chakra reserves bigger so that she didn't always have to make Sasuke wait around doing nothing while she had no chakra supply to tree hop with.

After the four day trip to the border that the fire country shared with the land of tea, Kakashi and his team were now ready to take the scroll and give it to the Fire Daimyo as that was the place that it was intended to go.

Seeing the man that was wearing a black cloak, Kakashi instantly recognized that the person who was on duty hear was a new member of the ANBU as he had no type of animal face on his mask. To a seasoned veteran of the ANBU Special Forces like Kakashi, he could guess that whoever this was, it was their first mission and that they were getting easy ones first to get weened into ANBU since there was not much longevity in the forces thanks to all of the high risk missions that they do.

Thanking the man for the scroll, Kakashi bid farewell to the man that was no doubt looking up to a role model as Kakashi knew that he was highly respected amongst the ANBU populace and decided that he and his team should get going all five of the ninjas in the area had a job that needed doing.

Once the part of document exchange was done rather anti-climatically in the eyes of Naruto who had, from all the stories that Kiba spoke at school about this supposed to be some super cool face off moment, he was fairly disappointed. When that was done, they both went their separate ways with team Kakashi heading off towards the fire capital in which they would be dropping off the document to the daimyo.

**Five days later**

Five days later and team Kakashi was now at the capital of the fire country and were waiting for their security clearance to go through and allow them to gain access to meet the fire Daimyo.

It was then that the voice of the sensei of team 7 spoke up with it being directed at Naruto. "Naruto since you want to become the Hokage, you will have to pay attention here since the person we are meeting is the done that gives you your funding and missions to run Konoha.

You don't want Konoha to turn out like Sunagakure in that your Daimyo gives most of your missions away to neighbouring countries just because you managed to annoy your boss." Kakashi stated as he thought that it would do Naruto good to get some familiarity with the man.

Nodding at what his sensei had just said, Naruto took the time to go over in his head all of the political lessons that he had gotten from books and what he got from his sensei when team 7 was in the land of grass.

Sasuke for his part didn't bother paying any attention whatsoever to what his sensei was saying as being the clan heir for the most prestigious clan in all of Konoha meant that talking to other members of high society was something that the pre-teen was use to and it was nothing out of the ordinary for him.

Sakura for her part paid attention half-heartedly since despite wanting to know how to conduct yourself in front of powerful politician's, she had no optimistic thoughts in becoming a Hokage or anything with the need to talk on a frequent basis with high society clients.

Getting the nod from the Samurai that were standing guard at the front door to the room in which lots of people lives were affected by the decisions made in this room, team Kakashi walked in to get the document.

"Hello Daimyo-sama, it has been quite a while since we have last met." Kakashi politely stated yet while still being respectful as it was the easiest way to start a conversation with the man that he remembered from past experiences.

"Oh, OH! Now I remember that teenager from a long time ago who looked just like you and he came with Minato-kun to the party I hosted for his Inauguration to the position of Hokage." The man who was slightly oblivious in remembering who was in front of him although he did have the excuse in that he had to see tons of people day in day out thanks to him being the Daimyo.

"Yes Daimyo-sama, that was me back then as I came along thanks to Minato-sensei who invited me and his then girlfriend at the time Kushina." The silver haired Jonin stated to the man who he was confident in that he wouldn't associate Naruto with either of his parents as Naruto was standing a fair way away and without any chakra enhancing his vision, it would be hard to tell Naruto was related to the Yondaime Hokage as in this part of fire country, there were quite a few golden yellow haired children as they dyed it in the hopes of looking like their idol, Minato Namikaze.

"Ah, it is such a sad thing that Kushina-chan and Minato-kun are no longer among the living. Oh, if you called Minato-kun Minato-sensei than you must be Kakashi-kun, the son of Konoha's white fang no less. Wow, Kakashi-kun you sure have grown up since I last saw you, it seems that your final growth spurt was very kind to you wasn't it?" the fickle and indecisive man questioned to Kakashi who just smiled and started his reply.

Despite Kakashi having an excellent poker face he did not have the ability to sweep things under the rug and completely bury them as mentioning Sakumo around Kakashi if you knew the man was taboo and likely to get a blade out of lightning through your chest if you annoyed the sharingan warrior enough he still got annoyed and was not able to keep all of his emotions inside of his body.

Thankfully the person that he was talking to was not a shinobi and he was a fairly old civilian man who had no idea what to look for in one's posture to determine one's emotions, all of the anger that Kakashi was feeling went unnoticed by the person at the top of the land of fire's hierarchy.

"Yes, I wish Minato-sensei and Kushina-chan were still alive but alas, things can't always go your way." Kakashi said in a wistful tone of voice.

"Well I am sure that you are the Fire Daimyo, you must have a lot on your plate and be very busy, so I think it would be best that if we handed you the scroll so that you can get on with your no doubt hectic schedule ahead of you." The silver haired Jonin stated as from what he had learnt from the Sandaime was that the Fire Daimyo was someone that was easily persuaded if you had a semi-decent argument on your side as he liked to give a lot of his work to his advisors and the person who did the most work was usually the winner.

Seeing the logic behind what the former ANBU captain had just said the fire daimyo excepted the scroll that had the seal of the Tea Daimyo on it and sent a friendly smile towards Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura as he bid them farewell and good luck on their next mission as they left his room but not before bowing and saying goodbye themselves.

As soon as they were done with their meeting inside the office of the land of fire's daimyo, it was then that Sakura, since she had free time in foreign city, did the best thing that she could think of. That was to ask her beloved onto a date. "Hey Sasuke-kun, would you want…" Sakura said to the raven haired Uchiha who cut her off before she finished speaking.

"You are worse than Naruto." This comment completely shattered the girl's confidence as she thought that no matter how good Naruto got, he would still be the dead last of the class as everyone else around him would get better as well. Her delirium was shaken off by what Sasuke said next. "If you have time to prepare yourself in the morning which takes forever, than you have enough time to go and train." Sasuke said before walking off so that he could go and find a place in which he could build up his stamina and chakra reserves.

With new determination to train instilled into her by her crush, Sakura went back to where Kakashi and Naruto were and started talking to her sensei, interrupting whatever conversation that might have been going on between Naruto and Kakashi.

"Kakashi-sensei, how do you build your chakra reserves so that you have more chakra?" Sakura questioned to her sensei as right now it was the first time she was taking an active interest in training and she guessed that her sensei was shocked.

Indeed the man known as Kakashi Hatake was shocked, so was Naruto who was standing right there next to his sensei. Being the person who he is, something that Kakashi said to annoy people was said as he didn't believe what he had just heard. "Huh, you say something?" the silver haired Jonin asked his only female student.

Blushing in embarrassment for a reason she did not know, Sakura pressed on to get the information that she wanted. "I said, how do you build your chakra so that you have more of the energy?" Sakura questioned to her sensei who had just gotten over the shock of Sakura actually wanting to train.

"Oh, so you're actually taking your training seriously Sakura-chan?" Kakashi mused as he wanted to see her reaction. He was not surprised when he saw how Sakura blushed at the obvious fact that she hadn't been taking her shinobi training seriously up until now.

"Well training for larger chakra reserves is like training a muscle, I am sure you know how the muscle structure inside the body works since you have a lot of knowledge inside that head of yours right?" Kakashi questioned to which Sakura nodded in thanks and ran off to get her training started as she had just the exercise in mind that would increase her chakra reserves.

It was then that the conversation between Naruto and Kakashi started up again once Sakura had left. Previously they had been talking about what Naruto had learnt from watching the Daimyo and what he should take advantage of with the man if he ever became Hokage.

"So, you being trained by the Yondaime Hokage huh, is that the reason why you are such a good ninja Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto questioned as he wanted to know what it was like having a Hokage in the making training you.

"Minato-sensei was a great man and I would have liked him even if he wasn't my sensei. About your question though, it doesn't matter how skilled your teacher is, well not at your level anyway, only if you are at the level of Jonin and you want to further your skills, you will need someone with innate knowledge on a subject to get better at it.

The point I am trying to make is that, If I had absolutely no interest in training you because I thought of you as the fox, I would be a worse teacher than Iruka, your chunin-sensei at the academy since he would be more willing to help you." Kakashi said to Naruto who nodded but immediately followed up with a new question.

"So then is there a specific reason as to why you only train us if we ask you to train us?" Naruto questioned as he remembered that Kakashi had never offered to teach the team anything apart from teamwork from the day that they had first met unless he had specifically asked for help.

Unperturbed by Naruto calling him out on his lack of teaching abilities, Kakashi had a reply in store for Naruto that would ease his mind. "There is one thing that you and the rest of your team have to have before I will train you to be better ninjas and that is the initiative to come to me and ask for some training or there is no real point in training.

You and Sasuke have shown initiative by going out and learning new jutsus and so forth. What's the point of me just handing out free jutsus to you and Sasuke other than to over inflate your ego which Sasuke has way too much of already?" the silver haired Jonin asked a rhetorical question to his sensei's son.

"I could drive all three of you into the ground just like I did with all of the new recruits into ANBU but you actually have to want to become a better ninja or otherwise all of the training was in vein and was a waste of my time." Kakashi said to Naruto who nodded and thanked his sensei for the insight.

"Well then Kakashi-sensei would you be possibly willing to train me in getting my speed better because I read a book at the library and it stated that it was usually the fastest shinobi that one the battle because what's the point of having a jutsu that the enemy can dodge?" Naruto questioned as having someone to teach him and solely him was something that Naruto had been craving for ever since he had suffered the injustice at the academy.

Thinking the decision over in his head, it actually wasn't that hard for Kakashi as he wanted to spend some time with Minato-sensei's son who he was slowly growing to like not as his sensei's son but actually as Naruto Uzumaki, the polite and calm boy who had a ruthless side when it favoured him, kind of like what he imagined a good Orochimaru would be like. "Sure." Kakashi said as he put his book in his pocket so that he and Naruto could get down to the meat of their training.

**At a training ground**

Since Kakashi had been here on many occasions one of the contingents of the Hokage's guard, Kakashi had enough time around the place to find secluded spots that no one would bother to interrupt them.

When they got to the training ground, it was Kakashi who spoke first as he wanted to know where Naruto was at in terms of ability. "Alright Naruto, what I want you to do before we get into any training is to have a spar in which you will go full out and I will just do my best to dodge and block you so I can see what you need to work on.

"Right, well let's get started with this then." Naruto said as he threw three kunai with his left arm which surprised Kakashi as for as long as he had watched Naruto in his teamwork training sessions, Naruto always used his right hand for things like this. Watching the new and improved throws made Kakashi wonder what had made Naruto use his right hand all of his life as he was definitely better with his left.

Testing the water out with his sensei as he wanted to get a good feel for where he was at as a ninja. That was why he threw a few more kunai at his sensei when he dodged the previous ones.

Thinking that Naruto was going a bit basic in his plans with just throwing, Kakashi was surprised when Naruto showed off that he had more than the two wind ninjutsus that he had previously shown off.

Had Naruto actually been faster with his hand seals, he might have made his sensei get serious for a moment but then relaxed when he saw how slow Naruto was going through his hand seals and could predict even without the sharingan what jutsu his blonde haired student was going to use.

"**Fuuton: Reppusho no Jutsu (Wind Release: Violent Wind Palm Jutsu)**" Naruto called out and a gust of wind came out from his hands and propelled the speed in which the pieces of metal were travelling at which would make it much harder for Kakashi to dodge.

Sadly for Naruto, you don't become an ANBU let alone arguably the best ANBU captain in the history of Konoha without being able to dodge a wind enhanced kunai being thrown at you.

Dodging the kunai that Naruto had thrown at him, Kakashi was only just realising just now just how much chakra Naruto had in his system when Naruto called out yet another wind ninjutsu. "**Fuuton: Fudangan no Jutsu (Wind Release: Air Bullet Jutsu)**"

While the attack was being sent in the direction of his sensei, Naruto moved his hands into the first real battle capable jutsu that he learnt. That was the **Kinjutsu: Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Forbidden Jutsu: Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu.)**

Making upwards of 30 clones, Naruto went back to his old battle tactic which was the only thing that he could use as none of his other plans were working and Naruto could only hope that this would work because apart from having a battle with sensei on attrition, there was no way for Naruto to win and even then the only way how he would win would be thanks to the Kyubi.

Not wanting to rely on the Kyubi for winning all of his battles, Naruto hoped that overwhelming his sensei would be the right way to go in winning the match. Sadly for him this did not work out as for Kakashi, the strategy that his sensei's son was using was too rudimentary in Kakashi's eyes and wanted to see Naruto come up with something better.

When Kakashi dismissed all of the clones via some form of taijutsu, it was then that Naruto had wild and outlandish idea that just might work, first though he needed to test something out and was why he once again used the **Kinjutsu: Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Forbidden Jutsu: Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu) **this time to create around about 50 clones.

What the plan was, was that Naruto was to test out a theory that he had had with the clones ever since he learnt the jutsu and learnt that they were extensions of himself. What Naruto was going to test out was that if a clone was able to use a ninjutsu just the same way that he could.

That test proved out that it clones did indeed have the ability to use ninjutsu like he could and this gave him the idea that would hopefully get him the win. For the final time of the match, Naruto used the **Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Forbidden Jutsu: Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu.)**

This time around though theywere not told to go in one by one as Naruto wanted them to stall for a bit so that he could get his plan into place. This time Naruto made in excess of 50 clones as he wanted to be sure and thanks to the Kyubi inside him, he had enough chakra to test out a plan in battle and not have to worry about the consequence of suffering from chakra exhaustion.

Once everything was in place, Naruto ordered the remaining clones that were serving as a distraction for Kakashi to rush in and gang up on him. While that was happening, Naruto set off his plan by using the largest area of affect jutsu with four other clones helping him.

That jutsu was the **Fuuton: Daitoppa (Wind Release: Great Breakthrough.) **Using such a powerful jutsu with quite a few clones was even enough that when Kakashi used chakra to stick to the ground to let the wind wash over him, it was too much for him and it flung him into the air.

The flying Kakashi went straight into the path of where Naruto had set up the middle part of his plan. It was then that the silver haired Jonin heard the familiar voice of Naruto call out his jutsu.

"**Fuuton: Fudangan no Jutsu (Wind Release: Air Bullet Jutsu)**" the group of blonde haired clones called out as the multiple blasts of compressed air were going at perpendicular action to what the sensei of team 7 was going at and they impacted, hard.

Changing directions was something that Kakashi was not use to feeling whilst still in mid-air and the g-forces that came with it; this was why he was quite late in dodging the final part to Naruto's plan to beat his sensei and took a few kunai to the arms and legs as he was able to save his core.

On the other side in which the clones that sent the pressurized blasts of wind at Kakashi, there was an equal amount of clones holding quite a few kunai in each hand and threw them at Kakashi.

To make things worse, Naruto had decided on using his **Fuuton: Reppusho no Jutsu (Wind Release: Violent Wind Palm Jutsu) **which was a wind ninjutsu that greatly increased the piercing power and speed in which metal objects fly through the air.

Calling out the name of the jutsu, the Naruto which had dispelled all of the clones in an effort to acquire some of his chakra back as he was running on empty with what he had just done watched on and was disappointed that his great plan which he had thought on the fly only gave his sensei a few cuts though one of the kunai was still sticking in his leg.

Seeing what Naruto had just done, Kakashi only barely had enough time to use the Ninpou: Kawarimi no Jutsu (Ninja Arts: Body Replacement Jutsu to replace his body with a coincidentally nearby log and save him from getting hit by a serious attack from Naruto.

It was then that the silver haired Jonin felt that it was necessary for him to speak up and end the match or otherwise he would have to go on the offensive. "Okay Naruto, you can stop now, you have done enough to make me impressed" Kakashi said as he felt that Naruto had done enough to earn a chunin promotion just from that battle strategy at the end there. That was something to think about in the near future as they were coming up and it would be good to get Sakura out of her fan girl state and hey, one of his students might even get lucky.

Running up to his sensei, Naruto was panting hard as he was struggling to keep consciousness since he had just used a butt load of chakra and was practically out of all of the substance. "So Kakashi-sensei, how did I do just then?" Naruto asked as he wanted feedback so that he could review the fight in his head and find out what to do next time to make him a better shinobi.

"Well you did excellent for a ninja who had just come out of the academy only 5 months ago. A performance like that in a chunin exam final would normally be enough to become chunin although I think the judges might be a little harsh given just who you are." Kakashi bluntly stated as he felt that Naruto needed to learn the reality of the life of a ninja.

There were even more things that Kakashi believed that Naruto deserved to know now that he was getting much more mature and could probably handle the news of who his parents were but since he was not the Hokage, he did not have the right to make that decision.

Dismissing his musing thoughts, Kakashi watched as Naruto struggled to stand. "Naruto you might want to go and get some food as you look like you're about to pass out from a lack of chakra inside your body which is needed it for it too run properly." Nodding at the statement that came from Kakashi-sensei, Naruto went over to where he had placed his back pack down by a tree.

Since this was the first time that Naruto was ever exhausted from a training session, it meant that the boy had to consume massive amounts of energy containing products just to get his body prepared for whatever he might encounter.

Instead of the 3 ration bars and a protein shake that usually had enough calories and other things inside to fuel his rather weak training sessions in comparison to what he could possibly handle thanks to the accelerated healing abilities of the Kyubi, Naruto was now eating 8 nutrient bars and two protein shakes to get his body in the best shape after using so much chakra.

Since Naruto now had too much energy inside of his body as he over-compensated in what he ate as he was in a rush to overcome the exhaustion from using so much chakra, he now wanted to do his training with Kakashi-sensei to get tired and use up the energy or otherwise he would have to spend a good time on the toilet as his body would force anything unnecessary out of his body and it was not a pleasant experience when all of it was in the form of liquid rather than solid thanks to the Kyubi changing his Uzumaki bloodline to make the acids inside of his stomach to be much more potent.

"Kakashi-sensei, can we get back to training or otherwise I will suffer some rather _unpleasant _things if I don't get this excess energy out of my system." Naruto questioned to his sensei who was curious as to what Naruto would suffer from not training.

Thinking that it could be something that could endanger his sensei's son, Kakashi took no risks and asked the blonde haired boy beneath him what the problem was. "Naruto, as your sensei, you can't hide things from me and if something is causing you harm than you have to tell me so I can get rid of it." Kakashi stated in a firm tone to Naruto which left no room for an argument to come from Naruto.

"Well it is not as if someone is threatening me or anything like that, it is just that since that I have the Kyubi sealed inside of me, my body works somewhat differently compared to the average human.

My body has a much more volatile digestive system which has acids that dissolve food differently. The net outcome is that anything I eat that does not enhance my body or keep it at the same level it was once at, will be forcefully discarded through my bowels and since my stomach acids are much more powerful… It turns the end product from what is normally solid into liquid which means going to the toilet is harder as I have less control over when I go." Naruto stated as he felt embarrassed talking about the subject of him going to the toilet.

Rightfully so in the eyes of Kakashi as he didn't know what he would do if every single time he went to the toilet it was coming out in a liquid form. It was then that the silver haired Jonin wondered what Naruto must go through on a regular basis.

"Alright then, I know some training that could help that out. Now what I want to know is what aspect of ninja training is it that you want to improve." Kakashi questioned wondering what Naruto would come up with.

It took Naruto a bit to think about what he wanted to learn from his sensei but in the end it was not that hard to figure out as from what Naruto had read from the books at the library on how to get better as a shinobi, Naruto knew the two things that he needed to work on.

"When I was at the library, I read two segments of a book that really stuck in my head as to what I type of shinobi I want to be. The two quotes were:

Usually it is the faster shinobi that is the one that wins the battle.

It is better to have no weaknesses rather than just having a great strength.

"What I mean by those sayings is that the two things that I want to work on most at the moment are my genjutsu abilities and my body's baseline speed." Naruto stated to Kakashi as he hoped that his sensei was knowledgeable enough to give him good advice on those two subjects.

Thankfully for Naruto that his sensei wasn't just any Jonin in Konoha and was one of the best that they had to offer who prided himself on being better than proficient in all areas of shinobi skills. This meant that Kakashi knew the ways on how to get most out of a body conditioning session and knew all of the ways to break a genjutsu and was proficient in doing each of these ways that he could team them to someone else.

"Right then Naruto, we will be just conditioning your body so that you are faster and stronger which will also enhance your taijutsu as you will be doing more damage to your opponent. After we do that which will be tiring for you, we will move onto how to spot break free of a genjutsu as I trust that you can do the information training on genjutsu at the library." Kakashi stated to Naruto to which the blonde haired boy nodded quickly as he was anxious to see what his training would be as this would be his first time working one on one with a sensei.

"Kakashi-sensei, how will we be doing the body conditioning training? Will I have just have to run a set amount of laps and try and improve that the next time around?" Naruto inquired excitedly.

Shaking his head in amusement because no matter how much Naruto had changed, he would still always be excited to improve his skills as a ninja. "No, you will not do that, what I want you to do is just to warm up your body so that when I come back, you will be all ready for your training." Kakashi said to which Naruto nodded in a determined fashion not wanting to disappoint his sensei who was so much nicer to him as a sensei than what Iruka was.

**A few minutes later**

Coming back from wherever it was that his sensei went, Naruto looked at Kakashi to see whether or not Kakashi had some device that would help him train. That was why when Kakashi didn't come back with anything special in his hands, Naruto was slightly disappointed.

This all stopped though when Naruto brought out a generic sealing scroll and opened it up in front of Naruto and what came out was not what Naruto was expecting. What Naruto was expecting was some sort of weights that he could use as a form of resistance training.

That was why Naruto was not sure what he was supposed to do when his sensei pulled out a two rocks which each had a flat side on them with each of them having some writing on it. "Not to question your teaching methods Kakashi-sensei, but how will two small rocks help me train my body?" Naruto questioned as he wondered how he was going to train with a rock

Unperturbed by what Naruto had just asked, Kakashi just had a smile on his face when he spoke to Naruto. "Just try and pick them up and you will know how they will help you." Kakashi said with an eye smile as he wanted to see the face on Naruto when he tried to pick up the Fuuinjutsu weighted rocks up.

Kakashi did get the response that he was looking for as Naruto tried to pick them up while bending down and found out that he couldn't do it. Getting a determined look on his face, Naruto used all of his muscles to pick them up and realised just how hard it was.

Picking up both of the rocks that each weighed in excess of 20kg (2.2 pounds = 1 Kilogram) struggling to hold them up, Naruto looked at his sensei in a questioning tone as if to say "what next?"

With an eye smile that made Naruto worry as it definitely meant no good, Kakashi spoke up giving Naruto his exercise for the moment. "Raise your arms so that they are in a horizontal position and hold them there for 3 seconds before slowly lowering your arms down.

You will do 5 reps of this and in each rep you will do a set 10 reps so you might want to get going." Kakashi stated to Naruto who only steeled his expression into one of lots of determination and did what his sensei stated.

Not knowing how truly torturous the exercise was, Naruto found out just how hard it was when he tried to lift his arms into a horizontal position. When Naruto managed to get his arms into the correct position, he thought that it could not get worse than what it felt to hold his arms in that position.

He was wrong though, there was something that he hated more than that and that was the slowly moving your arms down to your side all the while having to fight of gravity along with the pain in your arms that wanted to just drop the weights and be done with it. All in all, this was the most challenging form of training that he had ever done.

When Naruto had finally done the horizontal lift with the stones, he felt that it was over as this was the most tired his muscles had ever felt before and his arms were screaming at him to stop what he was doing. Now though that he knew that it was a good thing for them to be doing that he felt satisfied that he was doing the right thing.

While Naruto thought that he was near the end of his exercise, Kakashi had totally different ideas, for him, Naruto was only getting to the meat of his workout and this was fun, he was finally seeing why Minato-sensei had loved being a sensei so much because of the experience of watching the kids' faces when they train made up for the lack of interesting missions that you don't get to go on since you are with a team of genin.

"Now Naruto, you need to hang onto the tree over there through the use of chakra on your hands so that you can do the next exercise." Kakashi ordered to Naruto who slowly got up but did not say anything smart ass remark as he wanted Kakashi-sensei to be proud of him, little did he know that the silver haired Jonin was already proud of him.

Hanging off of the branch coming off the tree, Naruto wondered what his next exercise was. It was then that Kakashi came over holding the two rocks in his left hand without any form of exertion appearing on the man's face when he walked over to Naruto.

"Chakra" was all Kakashi said when he placed one of the rocks onto Naruto's right Achilles heel to which Naruto nodded and used the chakra to keep the rock in place. Once Naruto had done the same thing with the other rock on its corresponding leg, Kakashi spoke up.

"What you have to do is not move your thigh muscles at all and just rely on your calves to lift the weight. This time you have to do double the amount of reps and still do the same amount of sets." Kakashi said as his eyes never left the book written by Jiraiya of the _Densetsu no Sannin._

Gritting his teeth in determination, Naruto did what was asked of him and pushed all thoughts of protests that his legs were doing in an attempt to stop him from harming his body.

When the blonde haired boy had done what was required of him, he instantly released the hold onto the rocks via chakra and watched how they dropped like a rocket and impacted the ground making a fairly small crated around the point of impact.

Not much longer after the weight had been lifted, Naruto dropped to the ground and fell on his back as his legs were not strong enough so that they could support his weight at the moment.

Not even bothering to give Naruto any chance to take a break, Kakashi ordered him into his next exercise. "Your next exercise is probably the hardest one that you will do in your life. Now I will get into position and what I want you to do is to follow my lead." Kakashi said before he put his book on the ground and got into the bridge position.

A few seconds later and there was Kakashi lying down on the ground before he rested his weight on his elbows and supported his weight to keep his stomach of the ground via the use of his toes. The thing that Naruto noted was that Kakashi's back was perfectly parallel to the ground.

Not having to be told what he needed to do, Naruto got into the position and found that it was actually quite hard on the abdominal muscles to support the weight of his whole body thanks to the added weight his bones carried thanks to the Kyubi.

Deciding to be nice to Naruto and let him off the hook so that he could actually feel like eating when he finished the session, Kakashi reduced the weight seal that he had put onto the rocks to that only of 10kg each. Once that was done he put only one of the rocks onto his back. "Now Naruto I expect you to stay in that position with your back perfectly straight for five minutes. This is not only tests your abdominal muscles and gets them stronger, but it also is a mental fortitude test to see how long you can handle the pressure." Kakashi explained to Naruto who grunted and accepted the training which was the hardest form of training he had ever done.

**Time Skip**

Over the course of the next three hours, got exercises drilled into him that made his body protest as it was definitely cursing having Kakashi as its sensei because they did not like what was happening one bit.

Whenever Naruto would use a muscle to the point of exhaustion, Kakashi would switch the exercise so that he could focus on a different set of muscles and develop them to the point of exhaustion only to once again change to a new muscle.

With Naruto absolute drained of all will to move his body even an inch, Kakashi thought that it was high time that he got Naruto started on learning how to detect, dispel and eventually cast genjutsu.

"The most important thing that comes to mind where it concerns all forms of genjutsu is that attention to all of the small details is paramount." Kakashi started off his lecture as he watched Naruto groan and get up, walk over to his backpack and pull out a book that was titled "Notes for learning."

Once Naruto had sat back down with his sensei, he started quickly writing down in perfect hand writing what his sensei had just said word for word. This surprised Kakashi as he certainly did not expect for Naruto to have such good hand writing, even he wasn't that good when it came to writing neatly whilst still being able to write fast.

Getting over the fact that Naruto was taking notes, Kakashi got back into lecture mode, once which he seemed to do fairly often. "The reason why attention to detail is so important for genjutsu is twofold.

The first being that you need to be pay constant attention to your surroundings so that you can spot if something is not what it should be or in case something is out of place which are the easiest ways to notice if you are caught in a Genjutsu." Kakashi said as he watched how Naruto's comprehension skills were great for someone who wasn't a civilian kid who had all of the lessons at school in comprehension.

"The other reason as to why it is such an important thing is because you need to have that same level of awareness to make sure that nothing is out of the ordinary in the genjutsu's that you use so that your enemy is able to realise that they're in a genjutsu and try and break free from them." Kakashi said to which Naruto wrote down in his book.

"New Heading Naruto, breaking Genjutsu's. There are four main ways to break out of a genjutsu but we will be only covering three of them since the Kyubi inside of your stomach would affect your ability to do the last one." The sharingan warrior stated to which Naruto frowned and hoped that the other ways would be good enough to compensate as he tried to make the best out of tough situations.

"The easiest way to break out of a genjutsu is a way that you will only use at a last resort if all other means fail okay?" while Kakashi formed this statement in the form of a question, Naruto knew enough as this was not a question at all, it was law.

Nodding, Naruto prepared himself for whatever it was. "The easiest way to break out of a genjutsu is to induce yourself in severe pain that it the messages that your nervous system sends to your brain overload the place where your senses meet the brain and break out of the genjutsu that way.

This way is probably going to be the easiest way for you thanks to the fact that you have unnatural amounts of chakra at such a young age. This is to send your chakra out in a concentrated wave using the ram hand sign and break all genjutsus in a surrounding area." Kakashi said and waited in case Naruto had a question to ask about combatting genjutsu so far.

Naruto, sensing his opportunity to speak, used his voice to communicate with his sensei. "Kakashi-sensei, how much is an appropriate amount of chakra for this way of releasing genjutsu as what a book says as a large amount of chakra is not the same as a large amount of chakra for me." Naruto asked as he wanted to get everything right.

"I would say that you would need roughly the same amount as you would need to make three **Ninpou: Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Ninja Arts: Shadow Clone Jutsu)**"

Hearing what his sensei had said made Naruto come to a realisation in the ninja world and it was something that would be one of the first things that he would change when he became Hokage. What Naruto had realised was that there was no standard measurement for chakra like there was for distance, weight and currency.

Getting Naruto out of his revere, Kakashi spoke up. "The other main form of having a genjutsu broken is to have someone nearby and have them inject a small amount of their chakra into your pathways to overcome the disturbance in chakra." Kakashi said as he finished his lecture but not before remembering something that would do well for Naruto to learn.

"Oh this is something that would specifically help you Naruto. It has been said that if someone has full control over the demon inside of them, they are able to use the beast's chakra and inject it into their system to flush out the genjutsu." The silver haired Jonin lectured to which Naruto looked fascinated and was wondering how he would manage to gain control over the Kyubi no Kitsune.

"Now Naruto put the book down as this next lesson has no theoretical part to it whatsoever." the masked ninja said to Naruto to which the blonde haired boy nodded and looked at his sensei to see what the next lesson he was going to learn was.

"What you will now learn is how to use your chakra to expand out of your body and get rid of all nearby genjutsus. Now what you need to do is just gather 5 shadow clone's worth of chakra and expel that out in all directions from your body." Kakashi lectured to his student.

What Naruto did not know was that this was also the basic training done for ANBU members who want to attain the rank of captain as chakra sensing is a requirement as you have to be sure that no one can sneak up on you.

It was not hard for Naruto to learn this, in fact it was something that Naruto learnt first go and he would only get better at it. Channelling chakra all around his body, Naruto was able to dispel a B-ranked genjutsu as Kakashi had subtlety casted one on Naruto to see how good he was at getting out of them.

For someone who was having his first day of learning how to break a genjutsu, Naruto was a genius in the eyes of Kakashi. Thinking about it, Kakashi wouldn't hesitate to guess that Naruto was a genius when it came to the ninja arts it was just that his early potential was severely hampered thanks to the Konoha education system.

Finally after the hardest ever training session that Naruto had ever been through was done, Kakashi and Naruto headed to the hotel which had been part of their mission for the first night of their stay in the fire country capital.

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><p><strong>Author's notes:<strong>

**In terms of having a ranking system set in place at the bottom of each chapter so that people could get an idea in terms of where there favourite character is at compared to other characters. **

**These are all out of 5. I know that they are not similar to the data book as I think that they're way too generous in the rankings it gives out so these will all be adjusted accordingly. These will all be their base forms so whatever power up they get later on like the sharingan or Kyubi mode, you have to adjust in your head.**

**Naruto: **

**Ninjutsu: 2 Taijutsu: 1 Genjutsu: 0 Intelligence: 3 Strength: 1.5 Speed: 1.5 Stamina 4 hand Signs: 1.5 Total: 14.5/40**

**Sasuke: **

**Ninjutsu: 2.5 Taijutsu: 2 Genjutsu: 1 Intelligence: 1.5 Strength: 1.5 Speed: 1.5 Stamina: 2.5 Hand Signs: 2 Total: 14.5/40**

**Sakura: **

**Ninjutsu: 0.5 Taijutsu: 1.5 Genjutsu: 1 Intelligence: 2.5 Strength: 0.5 Speed: 1 Stamina: 1.5 Hand Signs: 2.5 Total: 11/40**

**Karin: **

**Ninjutsu: 1.5 Taijutsu: 1 Genjutsu: 1.5 Intelligence: 2.5 Strength: 1 Speed: 1 Stamina: 1.5 Hand Signs: 2 Total: 12/40**

**Is it something that you would like me to do after every chapter? Or is it something that I should just scrap?**


	11. Did you sail across the sun

**Just a bit of forewarning, there are parts in this chapter that require a bit of knowledge about how the muscle system inside the human body works. If you want to get what I am talking about in this chapter, then go and brush up your knowledge on the anaerobic and aerobic ways that muscles work.**

**A few grammatical errors that have jutsu been fixed up in the re-upload.**

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><p>The three days that team Kakashi spent in the capital of fire country were absolute torture for Naruto as he was getting his physical training along with his genjutsu detecting and dispelling, Naruto was in the thick of his training.<p>

During these three days that Naruto had been given a fairly intermediate lesson on not falling into the trap of a genjutsu, Naruto had gotten his skills up in the area compared to that of his two teammates Sakura and Sasuke. While he could not cast any of them, Naruto was able to dispel a high B-ranked genjutsu from the training that he had gotten from his sensei Kakashi.

Naruto's weight training with the two rocks was not going as well as while he was doing the training from his sensei, he was not seeing any results in his body when looking in a mirror or when Naruto tried to push past the limits of what he managed to complete the day before in his training.

In fact, Naruto was so concerned about his training measures when he noticed that if anything, he was getting smaller thanks to his physical training.

This was a concern that Naruto voiced to his sensei as he thought that like his skills in genjutsu, Naruto would be able to see immediate results when he looked in the mirror.

Dismissing everything that Naruto was worried about, Kakashi decided to explain to Naruto how exactly the body works in getting stronger, faster and bigger muscles.

**Flash back**

"_Now Naruto, you don't need to worry about anything like that, I guess that while you have been getting quite stronger and smarter recently you haven't been studying much how the human body works because you think that it is different thanks to the Kyubi right?" Kakashi questioned to his favourite student as he felt much more at ease when talking with Naruto compared to Sakura and Sasuke._

"_The truth is that while your body is quite different from the average human's, it is not different enough that you shouldn't read any books on how the human biology works as there are many things that you could learn from it which would help you as a shinobi._

_For instance, had you read the book, you would know that it takes at least 3 weeks of highly intense training for your body to show any visible signs of an increase in training._

_Another thing that you would also know would be that muscles form differently under alternative forms of training, the training which you are doing as it is intense, high resistance training is meant for quick muscle growth whereas training for long periods of time with low levels of resistance are generally used for finely tuning muscles for the specific singular purpose." Kakashi lectured Naruto who nodded and had somehow managed to pull out his book that had enough pages in it to fill up a novel if they all had writing on it and started quickly writing down what his sensei was saying._

**End Flash back**

In terms of the training that Sasuke and Sakura were going through, it was much the same compared to Naruto's physical training in that they couldn't see any results coming from their training.

For Sasuke it didn't matter as he had enough determination inside of him thanks to what his elder brother did to him the night that he massacred his clan to know that constant training would bring results.

For the only female in the group, someone who had no real motivation to train other than to not let Sasuke down, Sakura didn't have any strong emotion fuelling her desire to get stronger, that was why after she had finished on the final day of their brief holiday she wasn't going to continue the training as she didn't see the point in getting sweaty and unattractive for the sake of nothing.

Now it was time for team 7 to go and complete their final mission of the month which would lead them back to Konoha as they could get back to a bit more hands on training without having to worry about ruining the landscape of the fire capital.

Once Kakashi had made sure that all of his genins' were packed and ready to go for their final mission, team Kakashi went to the gate that they would be leaving the fire country's capital to the military headquarters of fire country which was the place that they lived as they delivered their client to Konoha.

Unlike the first client that team 7 had gotten for their mission, this one was nowhere near as nice or as friendly as what their previous client, the elderly couple were.

In fact, in Naruto's opinion, this girl / woman, whatever you wanted to call her had the personality that could rival Sasuke's in terms of anti-socialness. This was probably caused by the fact that she wasn't thin at all. In fact, she was bigger than what most Akimichi's ever grow up to.

Naruto guessed that this was probably why she was so cold because everyone that talked to her called her fat. Now while someone who knew the old Naruto might think that the boy would feel a sense of kinship with her, they were wrong.

She had the possibility to change the way that she looked by her eating habits but instead chose not to and thought that the food was the refuge from her teasing problems, instead though it was actually the source of most of her pain. To Naruto, someone that fought through each and every single battle, it was an insult to what he stood for in battling to the end instead of giving up and calling it quits.

For someone who actually knew Naruto, it was easy to tell that he didn't like his client one bit but thanks to his control over his emotions, Naruto managed to never show one ounce of disdain towards the black haired woman.

What Naruto did not know was that it wasn't that he was getting better in controlling his emotions because he had never had any formal training of the sought. No, there was another reason as to why Naruto had a much better control over his emotions.

The reason as to why Naruto was no longer suffering from his inability to properly control his emotions was because his new training regimen. The reason why Naruto had to go through these things in the first place was because of that damned fire breathing fox inside of his stomach.

Having the Kyubi sealed inside of him, Naruto did not get super human powers or anything over the top. No, in fact, for every benefit having the Kyubi inside of him, there were always consequences and side effects that came with the pro of having the massive storage of chakra inside of you.

This was none more as true in the case with Naruto as his body was built differently. The cause of this was having the Kyubi's Youkai inside of his body practically from immediately coming out of his mother's womb.

What the Youkai that came from the Kyubi and went into Naruto's body did was that it caused an excess amount of chakra into his pathways and made it a very uncomfortable way for the blonde haired boy to acclimatise himself with life outside of his mother's stomach.

When there was just too much of the chakra running through the pathways than what Naruto was capable of safely and successfully holding, it would find ways to the chakra throughout the body to lessen the strain on his chakra coils.

This came in the form of storing the chakra in the muscles as a form of helping the tissues inside of the body combat lactic acid which was the by-product of muscles saying that they were tired and didn't want to do any more anaerobic exercise.

This was why that Naruto had such good stamina because his tissues were getting rid of his lactic acid much more quickly which allowed Naruto to not need to have oxygen going into them for them to work for long periods of time.

What this did was that it meant that Naruto basically had an aerobic system of fighting muscle fatigue in the form of using oxygen to fuel their workload that was basically rendered useless now that Naruto had such an efficient anaerobic system that let Naruto's muscles go at full tilt for much longer than what they could do when they were relying on the aerobic system.

When a baby is born there will be some growing deformities and mutations to try and accommodate what they were being forced to live through. An example of this is that if a teenage boy wore very tight underwear all through puberty, his manhood wouldn't grow to full size as the tight elastic would prevent that from happening.

This was no different in that the Kyubi was making Naruto's body perfect for surviving all of the tough situations that were going to come as the giant nine tailed fox demon wanted to ensure his own survival and with Naruto's and his own life tied together, he had to do things that he wouldn't normally do for the infant.

When Naruto's infantile body discarded the aerobic way of getting muscles to work as the anaerobic way was much better and efficient, the Kyubi noticed this and totally eradicated that way of making the body work out of his physique and in return created an even more efficient anaerobic system which was where Naruto got his great stamina from as his muscles could work out at the same level as normal muscles for a much longer period of time while still maintaining a very high intensity.

There were some side effects from having such a great way of combatting muscle fatigue though and that was that it gave Naruto a tremendous amount of energy that he could never get rid of thanks to his new way of dealing with muscle fatigue.

What compounded onto this fact was that Naruto, someone who had no education on the human body thought that the pain in his muscles thought that the first sign of pain going through them was the time in which he should stop his training because he didn't want anything bad happening to him as he certainly did not have enough money to pay for any of the medical expenses as he knew that they were supposed to be highly expensive.

All in all, this combined into Naruto never getting rid of the energy stored inside of his body which meant that he sought out the pranking as a small reprieve as it took quite a lot of energy to run away from the chunin's that were chasing after him.

It was not that Naruto was faster than them by any means, it was just the fact that he could run at his full speed constantly and never get tired from it while all of the people chasing him had to stop and take breaks. Add his unrivalled skills at stealth for someone of his age and lack of proper training in the art, Naruto was a good shinobi in the making.

This was why Naruto liked his training with his sensei because of the high resistance training for long hours was finally a training method that catered to his body's specific needs and allowed his body, for the first time in his life to get some proper reprieve from all of the energy that was stored up in his muscles.

When Naruto finally experienced the feeling of not having that restless feeling from his body telling him to do large amounts of movement, Naruto was the happiest he had been ever since his date with Karin-chan from Kusagakure.

**6 days later**

Once Naruto and his team had parted ways with their sensei, Kakashi went to go and do whatever it was that Jonin's did after training their students while team 7 went their separate ways so that they could each write up a mission report for each of the four missions that team Kakashi went on.

For Naruto this was surprisingly easy considering the fact that with his writing abilities and having found out which his dominant hand was, Naruto had no problem writing the reports that were required from him as a form of punishment for not listening to what was going on during the meeting with the Hokage.

Having done his mission reports up to a standard that a former ANBU captain would be satisfied with, Naruto decided that he should go and check up on Ayame, albeit through a disguise so that they wouldn't know it was him to see if there business was getting any better.

Walking down the street, Naruto was thoroughly shocked when he went up to the place that used to serve ramen. Instead of finding the ramen shop that once had been there and had housed Naruto through many of his tough times in his earlier years, Naruto now found that there no building at all and instead there was a group of construction workers there instead.

Shocked beyond belief at what was happening; Naruto rushed up to one of the construction workers thankfully still in his disguise and asked what was going on around here.

"Excuse me builder-san, but what is going on here, I was away for a month and when I came back I certainly did not expect to find that my favourite ramen bar demolished with nothing remaining." Naruto stated as his first thoughts drifted towards Ayame and Teuchi who had been so kind to him all those years.

Since the man was on his lunch break, he had the free time in which he could speak with Naruto about the blonde haired boy's concerns. "Huh, oh kid well what people tell me is that this was the place that the demon frequently visited here because this was the only place that was kind enough to allow him some food.

It's sad that the act of kindness, something that no one else in Konoha would think to do and they get repaid by having heaps of their customers leaving them as they didn't want to associate with a place that supported the demon, not that I blame them though, if I actually liked ramen, I would have done the exact same thing." The beefy construction worker said as he talked to the red eyed, disguised Naruto.

Had the man actually known that Naruto was actually the person behind the masquerade, then maybe the words that were coming out of his mouth would have been different along with the tone they were said with.

Wanting as much information as possible, Naruto asked the man one final question before he had to get back to work. "Do you know what had happened to the family that owned the business?" Naruto questioned trying to find out what he could do to help Ayame and her father.

"All I know is that they left Konoha in search of a new place that wouldn't recognize them as the people who allowed the demon to eat their food and start a new business." The man mused as he wondered where that place would be.

Naruto, frustrated at the fact that he could not get any information on where they went so that he could go and help them in their transition into a new life, tried to move onto other thoughts.

With being angry and depressed at you, it's very hard to move onto more positive thoughts and this was something that was no different in the case of Naruto. The thing that he was most depressed about was the fact that he never got to say goodbye to Ayame after they had that bitter conversation which led to Naruto never returning to their establishment.

The thing that Naruto was most angry about though was the fact that he never got the chance to repay the ramen serving family for all of the things that they had done for him in his time of need. This was a very bitter pill that Naruto was forced to swallow.

_I just used them and never once in my time did I think of the consequences that the people around me would suffer from my selfish actions. Fuck, I wish that I had just done something so that the few people who actually like me as a person didn't have to leave the village because they could not pay the bills. _

_What makes it worse is that it is absolutely the wrong kind of thing for a Hokage to do as they must think of all potential outcomes for a situation and choose one that is has the best outcome in the eyes of Konoha._

Furious with himself, Naruto, for the first time in his life after his meeting with Shakudo never said a form of thank you or goodbye to the person that he was talking to as he left with a lot of things to think about.

**The next day**

After doing a morning session of training which was enough that it still kept at their prime in case team 7 went on a mission today that involved strenuous movement and yet did enough so that it body was not screaming at him to exercise it.

After having a shower and having breakfast what would be enough to feed an fully grown male Akimichi in terms of kilojoules and calories, Naruto went over to his chest of drawers and pulled out the outfit that he had gotten multiple copies of as to use as his official ninja outfit when on missions which was still good enough that he could wear it out of ninja missions and still stares from women who thought that his fashion sense was unbecoming of a ninja.

The outfit in question was a pair of black cotton pants that were fairly fire resistant. On the top half of his body, there was a crimson long sleeve shirt that was getting tighter and tighter the longer than Naruto wore it as his frame was growing rapidly thanks to all of the supplements and added food going into his system.

Over the top of that crimson red shirt was a fairly thick fleece grey jacket that kept Naruto as snug as could be during winter and now that it was getting towards the hotter months in Konoha, it was starting to get a little hot for Naruto to wear but he decided that it was better to be safe rather than be sorry.

Once Naruto had gotten his outfit sorted out along with the weapons that he was supposed to carry according to the ninja books that he had read during the major course of his transformation, Naruto headed down towards where his team would be meeting with their sensei to find out what was going to happen

In the end Naruto was not surprised when Kakashi eventually came three hours late that they were not going to get a C-ranked mission as compared to how long it took team 7 to get one before, he thought that they were spoiled with the month of C-ranked missions and were going to get some D-ranks instead.

When Naruto saw that Kakashi looked up and spotted an hawk that was flying around in the sky and then subsequently watching his sensei leave via the use of the **Ninpou: Shunshin no Jutsu (Ninja Arts: Body Flicker no Jutsu)**, he wondered what it was that his sensei had to go and if it would have any effect on his team.

Turning around, Naruto was surprised to find that there were actually people who were dumb enough to think that hiding underneath a cardboard cut-out of a rock would be a good enough stealthy approach so that he wouldn't know that someone was following him.

Annoyed that whoever was underneath it was highly underestimated him, Naruto quickly used a low power **Fuuton: Daitoppa no Jutsu (Wind Release: Great Breakthrough Jutsu)** to blow whoever it was that was underneath the cardboard box out into the open five metres down the street from where he was.

To Naruto' surprise there was three kids that had just come out of the box all around the age of 8 or 9. Looking over at them, Naruto noticed that they had a smoke bomb and must have dropped the bomb when they were blown away and were now suffering the consequences of that action.

After a while, the three kids got up from where they were and ran over to Naruto and decided that since they hadn't introduced themselves to Naruto yet and decided that they should go and do that right now.

Doing a pose that would have shown off any curves that her body had if she had them; the only girl from the trio spoke up. "I'm Moegi and I am the sassiest kunoichi from preschool, check me out!" the newly announced Moegi stated with a fan girl like voice as she held her hand out. What that meant, Naruto had no idea and would just go along as if nothing had ever happened.

It was then that Naruto was greeted with the sight of the boy that was on the left from where he was facing, there was a boy that was wearing a dark blue top and had a big loogie coming out of his nose.

"I love algebra, call me Udon!" the snivelling boy called out as he put his hands into what was similar to one of the poses that Naruto saw those music people use in their TV videos. Seeing the snot coming from the boy, Naruto was highly disgusted that the kid had such poor personal hygiene but would not say anything as he didn't want to embarrass the boy in front of his friends as he had firsthand experience in what that felt like and wouldn't make someone else suffer from bullying if he could help it.

The final person of the group was none other than the Sandaime's grandson from what the pictures in the library books had when they showed living relatives of the most powerful ninjas that Konoha had to offer. Wondering what he of all people was doing bothering to talk to someone so low class like him, Naruto decided to wait and find out what the kid wanted so he could go and train.

It was then that the third person of the group spoke up. "And I'm the number one ninja in the village! Konohamaru!" the brown haired boy shouted out as he proudly stood with a pose though what he did not know was that he was almost about to trip over his scarf if he wasn't careful enough.

Once they had each done their individual introductions, the grandson of the Sandaime Hokage along with his two friends spoke up in unison with each other. "And when we're all together, we are the Konohamaru ninja squad!" the three kids stated as they posed together.

Watching the scene that was being played out in front of him, Naruto wondered whether or not his sensei had managed to slip one of those hallucinogenic plants into his body which was causing him to watch some fucked up shit going on right before his eyes.

It took a while but the blonde haired ninja eventually got his bearings right and managed to reply to the three kids in front of him. "And what was the purpose of coming all the way out here to meet with me?" Naruto stated wanting to know how long he had to put up with this blatant form of child-like behaviour and stupidity.

Not caring about what Naruto had just said to him, Konohamaru decided to reply to Naruto. "My grandpa, the guy who is the Sandaime Hokage promised that you would play ninja with us." The boy pouted as he never minded using his grandfather's fame to get what he wanted as he was a spoilt child through and through.

It was then that Sakura heard what Konohamaru had just said and misheard it thinking that Naruto himself had agreed to play ninja with them. When the girl spoke up, Naruto was thankful for her timely interruption as it led to a series of events that would make the grandson of the Sandaime Hokage forget about wanting to play ninja with Naruto.

"What's this, a ninja playing ninja with kids? Talk about pathetic." Sakura said as she could not believe Naruto saying that. Slowly but surely he was getting better as a person and then he goes and ruins it by doing something like that, she just didn't know what to believe when it came to Naruto nowadays.

Seeing someone insult the person that his grandfather had told him to visit, Konohamaru instantly took the side of Naruto in this conversation, something that the blonde haired boy was grateful for as he had never had anyone do that for him apart from Iruka on a few occasions.

"Hey boss, who is this girl anyway?" Konohamaru said which none of the team 7 that was in the area bothered to reply to. Being an impressionable kid and not really knowing what flirting and love was, he came to a conclusion.

_The way that she is staring at Naruto, it's as if she is looking at him with daggers._ It was as if a light bulb went off in the head of Konohamaru as he pieced things together. Rubbing his hand on Naruto's back, the brown haired boy spoke up.

"Oh I get it now, is she your girlfriend boss, you're a smooth operator huh boss?" the scarf wearing boy suggestively stated to Naruto with a grin and a wink marring his face.

Not having much experience with the fairer sex to know what Konohamaru was talking about, Naruto had to wait until when Konohamaru finished his sentence before he got what the little boy was implying. "Is she your girlfriend boss?" the boy said whilst holding up his pinky finger.

The sad thing for Konohamaru was that the pink haired girl that he thought that Naruto was dating and being the type of girl that she was, she knew that she had to set the record straight in case Ino heard the rumour that she and Naruto were dating.

"Why would I want to date someone like _him _when there are people out there like the great Sasuke-kun that would be so much better to be with." Sakura stated as she wanted to _g_et the point across that she in no shape or form did she like Naruto in that way.

Seeing the harsh dismissal coming from Sakura, the brown haired boy instantly changed his mind when it came to Naruto's aid. "What kind of girl are you, you gorilla. "Yeah, now that I think about it, why someone like the boss would want to date such a girl with a humongous large forehead and flat chested girl like you anyway? There are tons of other girls out there." Konohamaru stated as he looked at the way that Sakura was fumin

When Konohamaru said what he did, for some reason, Naruto's mind instantly pictured Karin-chan from Kusagakure who was wearing a dress whilst having a large smile on her face. Quickly dismissing those thoughts as books said that it was inappropriate for teenage boys to have thoughts like those, Naruto quickly dismissed them and realised the situation that Konohamaru had gotten himself into.

"You might want to run away Konohamaru as it seems that you have bitten of more than you could chew." Naruto said to which the nine year old boy nodded rapidly and turned around and started running in the opposite direction to which Sakura was at.

Being the nice type of person that he was, Naruto decided that he should go and follow them up to make sure that nothing severe happens. It was lucky for him that he did that as Naruto saw that there was not only Konoha shinobi inside the village hidden in the leaves at this current point in time.

No, there was a couple of shinobi from the hidden sand village right inside of his village and one of them happened to be the person that Konohamaru ran into when he turned around the corner in his hopes of running away from Sakura.

Since he was the son of the current Kazekage, Kankuro had not been treated as some average civilian, that was why when the boy from Konoha ran into him, old habits die hard and his spoilt childhood showed through his veins.

Picking up the little boy, Kankuro spoke to him "Ugh, you little shit, that hurt." The sand shinobi stated as he looked down upon the boy that had run into him. Konohamaru for his part was not in any condition to say anything other than grunt.

Sakura, being the highly insecure person that she was, she thought that the situation at hand could be best solved with words and not with fists. "Hey I'm sorry about what just happened, I was just messing around." Sakura feebly tried to say confidently as she was wondering just who in the world these people were.

Seeing that Naruto was getting angry at someone being bullied right in front of his eyes as it reminded him of his childhood, Naruto ran at Kankuro in the attempt to stop the bullying that was taking place.

Amused by the sight of Naruto running at him slightly faster than what he could safely handle if it was a taijutsu fight, Kankuro proudly boasted as he let out a chakra string in the attempt of tripping Naruto. "Huh, let's see how good these leaf genin are." Kankuro mused to himself.

Feeling something grab a hold of his ankle and try and trip him over, Naruto used his skills learnt in water walking to get good grip on the ground as he made the chakra strings that were coming from Kankuro effectively useless.

With the fact that Naruto had managed to shock the puppet user from Suna as he did not trip over like the boy intended, Naruto grabbed a kunai out of his hand and watched how a rock flew straight towards the Suna shinobi knocking his hold on Konohamaru away.

Seeing the opening that someone, probably Sasuke in Naruto's mind as they had good teamwork thanks to Kakashi, Naruto used the kunai in a jabbing motion to injure the enemy shinobi who was trying to hurt one of his future comrades.

Not seeing that Naruto was holding a kunai until it was too late; Kankuro tried to dodge as best as he could but ultimately failed as he got a large gash along his right arm. Seeing that his job was done, Naruto picked up Konohamaru and used a chakra enhanced jump to get out of the way and bring the grandson of the Hokage back into the safe area.

It was then that a large killing intent filled the immediate area as a boy from a branch opposite to where Sasuke was at made his presence known. What made this even more impressive was that the boy was hanging upside down on the bottom of the branch. "You Kankuro are a disappointment to Suna." Gaara stated in a monotone voice to which Kankuro faltered and retreated back a fair distance as to show just how powerful his younger brother was.

_How did he… that's Kakashi's level of stealth… I couldn't even sense him_ were the thoughts going through the minds of the Konoha genin in the surrounding area

Opening his mouth to speak once again, there was a definite reduction of noise as everyone was listening to the words of this red haired boy standing underneath the tree. "Losing yourself in a fight, your pathetic… why do you think we came to this village in the first place?" Gaara stated in a bored tone as he asked a rhetorical question.

Feebly trying to ignore the pain in his right arm and still keep a straight face when talking to his brother, the holder of the Ichibi no Shukaku was a hard thing to do. "Look Gaara, they started it and…" Kankuro said as he rapidly tried to find the right words to say.

Obviously they were not the right words to say judging from the reaction that came from the red haired boy. "Shut up or I will kill you myself." Gaara stated as he used a jutsu, that jutsu was the** Sunaton: Shunshin no Jutsu (Sand Release: Body Flicker Jutsu,)**

Reappearing in the middle of his brother and sister, Gaara had to go through the unnecessary listening to the pink haired girl from team 7's voice. With a voice that was quite loud in conjunction to the noises that he heard inside of his mind thanks to the Ichibi, Gaara was not in a very good mood.

"Hey wait!" Sakura shouted as she got the attention of team Sabaku and got them to turn around so that they could listen to what she had to say. "Judging from your forehead protectors, you are ninjas from the hidden sand village right?" Sakura questioned as she paused for a bit to get her thoughts right before speaking once again.

"You may be allies with the hidden leaf village but… It is forbidden for shinobi's to enter a foreign village without that village's permission. State your purpose, depending on your answer, we may not be able to let you go." Sakura said in what she thought was a tough tone.

For Temari though, she was someone to had to listen to Gaara all the time and what this fan girl judging by her appearance, was as pathetic in its attempt to make them scared as a newborn kitten was at looking frightening. "Huh, talking about clueless, don't you know anything?" Temari asked as she wondered how a fan girl with such poor knowledge ever managed to pass Konoha's graduating exam.

Both Naruto and Sasuke at this part were rapidly listening as to take in information that they probably should have known by now to see if it was something majorly important.

"You're right; we are genins from the hidden Sand village. We have come to Konoha to participate in the bi-annual chunin selection exam." Temari stated in a formal tone of voice that she had honed after getting lessons on the specific subject thanks to being the daughter of the current Kazekage.

"Before Temari could go into an explanation about how the chunin exams took place as she decided to educate the pink haired girl in case she didn't know, Sasuke jumped down from the tree branch and started talking. "You, what is your name?" the raven haired Uchiha questioned.

The blonde female fan wielding ninja thought that this question was directed at herself and blushed at the thought of a hot guy like Sasuke asking for her name. "You mean me?" Temari questioned as she tried to hide her blush.

Being the type of person that he was after having had to dismiss the advances of countless fan girls countless times; Sasuke was ruthless in the rejection of Temari's question. "No, you with the gourd." Sasuke stated as he stared down the container of _the Ichibi no Shukaku_.

"Gaara Sabaku" The gourd carrying boy stated to Sasuke who filed that information inside of his head. Not only was Sasuke filing away that information but Naruto also was on the off chance that he might meet the guy again.

Turning around so that he was facing roughly in the middle of where Sasuke and Naruto were, Gaara replied with a question of his own. "You two" Gaara stated as he looked at both Naruto and Sasuke when he said this. "I am also interested in your names and I would like to know your names." Gaara said politely to both Naruto and Sasuke.

Allowing Sasuke to have the attention that came with going first as he particularly didn't like attention as he generally got negative forms of it, Naruto waited as his teammate gave out his name and then when it was his turn to speak, Naruto answered Gaara. "My name is Naruto Uzumaki."

With that said and Gaara having gotten the information that he desired, Gaara, with the company of his two siblings left the laneway which team 7 and the Konohamaru corps by themselves.

Using this distraction as a time to quickly make off with the grandson of the current Hokage being none the wiser, Naruto left so that he could do some training as he felt that he could do much more in terms of pushing his muscles to the limit than what he had time for in the morning

Not to limit himself to only taijutsu training for the day though, Naruto went to the library to pick up a book that focused on wind ninjutsu as he wanted to get even better with his ninjutsu as that was the only real way for him to use his large chakra reserves efficiently in battle.

Once Naruto hired the book on advanced wind ninjutsu for people wanting to become a chunin and beyond, Naruto went to the team 7 training ground where he knew that he wouldn't be disturbed as Sasuke always trained inside his clan compound and Sakura never trained at all.

When Naruto was versing his sensei in their battle so that Kakashi could tell just how much Naruto had improved in a short amount of time, the blonde haired boy found out that his shadow clones could use chakra for ninjutsu as well as being able transfer all knowledge that they learnt back to him, gave Naruto a radical idea that he thought would improve his training by massive amounts.

That theory was that Naruto could have his clones training while he did his physical training and when the clones dispelled, it would be as if Naruto managed to train both at the same time thus drastically limiting his time training.

Though because Naruto did not want to waste heaps of chakra in case his new training method did not actually work, the blonde haired ninja limited himself to only using 25 or so clones instead of the 150 or so that he could potentially make for the training as he didn't want to waste chakra for nothing as to him, it was just as important as money was.

This was lucky for Naruto as the Kyubi sealed inside of him would have used the opportunity to try and take over Naruto when he was had little to no chakra to repel the fox's Youkai.

Reading over the book and finding out that the first exercise that was needed for learning new jutsus was to split a leaf via converting your chakra into a thin, sharp blade that would be sharp enough to cut through a surface of a leaf.

Reading over that it worked best when the chakra was focused into two forces grinding against each other to get the cutting motion to be stronger, Naruto told all of his clones this who nodded and took the hint to go and each grab a leaf from a tree and get to work on the training.

Since Naruto did not have the stones that Kakashi had put the weight seals on, Naruto had to improvise and had found a large rock which was more or less the same weight as the training equipment that he once used before.

**Time skip – night time**

After finishing his training to the point in which his muscles could barely hold their own weight, Naruto rested against a tree in the training ground and dispelled the **Kinjutsu: Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Forbidden Jutsu: Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu) **technique and felt the rush of information coming into him about how the clones had progressed in their wind composition training.

Picking up one of the excess leaves that had come off of the tree when the clones got their leaves for the training and used the skills his doppelgangers were trying to perfect to see for himself first-hand just how far he had come in terms of cutting the leaf.

Revealing the top hand, Naruto looked at his handiwork and frowned as he still had a lot of training that he had to do if he wanted to get this training perfected. When these self-inflicting negative thoughts arose, Naruto never bothered to realise the fact that this form of training usually took well over a month to achieve and to have done nearly half of it in just one day was truly remarkable.

There in the palm of his hand was a leaf that had a cut going down the centre of it filled with rough edges. When Naruto looked at his work in terms of training, it was easy to see that Naruto was a pessimistic type of person.

This was a trait that the snake clan would like as Naruto would never be satisfied with what he had and would always try and make the things that he has and the world in which he lived in to be a better place.

This was none more so visible in his training as he looked at the leaf in his hand and rather than think that it was cut half of the way, Naruto would look at it and think that he still had to cut the other half.

Having done his training for the whole day and well into the night after the brief encounter with team Sabaku and the Konohamaru corps, Naruto struggled to get back up and make his way home and rest for the night as his muscles were screaming for some time to recuperate and he was none more so happy to abide to that request.

**The next day**

After waiting the customary 3 hours which their sensei never bothered to show up at, Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke were greeted with the presence of their sensei, Kakashi Hatake. When Sakura had shouted enough that the displeasure from her alone was enough that on a normal team would cover all three members; Kakashi replied with the same type of stuff he normally did. "I got lost on the road of life."

Ignoring the shout of outrage coming from his female student; Kakashi spoke up to his team of genin. "Well anyway, this might be sudden and all but I have nominated you three to compete in this year's chunin exams." Kakashi said with a smile on his face although it was not seeable thanks to the mask that he wore over his face.

"Here are your nomination forms for the exams, though this is just a nomination, whether or not you want to take the exams is entirely up to you." Kakashi stated as he wanted to see whether or not Sakura would take part as he knew that she was the one that needed the most work in terms of brushing up on skills.

When Kakashi had said goodbye, he pretended to disappear but in reality, he stayed behind so that he could watch what happened with his three students. It was no surprise that Naruto and Sasuke were both very confident in their abilities as a ninja as they were both discussing the people that they wanted to face, with both of them wanting to fight Gaara as he was the person that had seemed to be the best out of team Sabaku.

Sakura on the other hand was nowhere near as confident in her abilities as she was second guessing herself slightly that while she had improved quite a bit as a ninja and had done quite a lot of stuff for the team, she was by no means able to compare the things that she did for the team compared to what Naruto and her great Sasuke-kun brought to the table.

Kakashi was watching these scenes unfold and wondered whether or not his team would be able to participate in the exam as they needed to have a full team and could not go at it with only just Naruto and Sasuke flying the banners of team 7.

**The next day**

By the time that Naruto had finished his early morning training session, he had managed to barely complete the leaf cutting exercise to the minimum standard that the book mention for adequacy of cutting a leaf as Naruto had managed to cut the leaf although it was a totally rugged cut and was far from perfect as the book stated that it should be as clean a cut as possible.

After having breakfast and preparing himself for the day's new challenge as he would be attending his first chunin exams; making his way over to the academy where he was instructed to go to via the pamphlet that his sensei had given to him the day before.

When he got to where he was supposed to meet up with his team, Naruto found out that he was the first person from team 7 to get there and he was shortly followed by Sakura and Sasuke. With all three giving nods of determination, team Kakashi made their way into the academy so that they could begin whatever it was that consisted of the chunin exam.

When the trio of young ninjas walked through the door, they were greeted with the site of a kid in a green spandex one piece sitting on the ground looking fairly beaten up. It was then that the voice of the person who did that to him spoke up.

"Hah! You plan to take the chunin exams with skills like that? You should just quit now!" Kotetsu claimed as he was just doing as he was told in that he was supposed to get rid of all the inferior people trying to participate in the exam.

Being the type of person that backs up his comrades, Izumo Kamizuki was one to jump on the back of what Kotetsu Hagane had just said and started speaking up himself. "Yeah, you're just a kid, you'd never make it past the chunin exams like you are now." The man reaffirmed as he did not want kids to suffer at the hands of Ibiki Morino.

It was then that the two chunin's in disguise went into a fairly detailed speech about how the challenges that chunin face are much tougher than the ones that genin have to deal with as they have to lead missions and everything that happens on the mission is their fault, including the deaths of the shinobi partaking in the mission.

It was then that the whole room stopped listening to Izumo and Kotetsu as there was a new voice entering itself into the conversation. "I agree with that but, you will let me pass through here." The raven haired Uchiha stated in a tone that showed off all of his confidence and arrogance.

"Also, remove the genjutsu that you put up that changes the surroundings of where we are, I want to get to the third floor." Sasuke said to the chunin in disguise who were impressed with the showing that the raven haired Uchiha had just done as he was ready for the chance to earn promotion to the rank of chunin.

It was as soon as the words that came from the Uchiha left his mouth, there were whisperings of "what's this guy talking about?" and "There isn't a genjutsu on us… is there?"

With a grin on his face showing that he was impressed with what Sasuke had just done, Kotetsu and Izumo released their illusion and the **Ninpou: Henge no jutsu (Ninja Art: Transformation Jutsu)** that they had over themselves.

In the mind of Naruto, he had seen the genjutsu that was casted over them but seeing it over everyone else made Naruto wonder what the point of it was, deciding to play ignorant as it would make the people around him think that he wasn't that great as he had gone to the library to get a book that had all the best ways to give yourself the ideal chance of obtaining promotion to the rank of chunin.

When the illusion was dropped, Kotetsu ran out of the smoke caused from the breaking of the illusion hopefully to get Sasuke off guard. This did not work as Sasuke saw this and prepared a kick in retaliation.

Unfortunately or fortunately depending on the way that you look at it, the clashing of the legs never happened as the green spandex wearing kid from before intercepted both incoming kicks.

This induced the thoughts of bewilderment in that the kid, the same one that was getting beaten up before was now so fast that he could intercept the two kicks as if they were carrying the same weight of a single feather.

The first person to react from Lee's blatant showing of skill was Lee's male teammate, Neji Hyuga. Said pale eyed boy started speaking in a tone that conveyed his anger towards Lee. "What happened to the plan? You were the one that specifically stated that we should not draw attention to ourselves." Neji questioned Lee to see what it was that Lee would say in reply.

Not even paying attention to what his teammate was asking him, Lee was transfixed onto something else entirely. That thing was Sakura Haruno and he was walking straight up to her. "My name is Rock Lee and your name is Sakura… so let's go out together! I'll protect you until you die."

Looking once over at the person who had just asked her out on a date, Sakura quickly made up her mind on whether or not to date the boy. "No way, you're lame!" Sakura shouted as she was did not want to be associated with a green spandex wearing weirdo.

Naruto for his part found the scene hilariously funny but with his good control on his emotions, he managed to settle it down to that of a snigger mixed with a chuckle as this served Naruto a reminder of what he could have been if he had never took that initiative in taking more missions since he had little to no money which the end result after a bad mission was the meeting he had with Shakudo-sama of the snake clan.

During Naruto's internal musings, there was a conversation going on between the two prodigies of Konoha's famous Dojutsu clans, the sharingan and the Byakugan which were being represented by Sasuke and Neji respectively. "You, what is your name?" Neji asked in a not too polite tone of voice.

Being the person who had lots of formal training to do with meetings thanks to which family he was born into along with him having a smartass nature in his personality, Sasuke replied in a way that pissed off the milky eyed Hyuga. "You know, it's polite to give out your own name first when you want to know the name of someone else." Sasuke said with a bored expression on his face.

Angered by the tone of voice and the words that Uchiha clan member used to address him with, Neji replied in an angered tone. "You're a rookie right? How old are you?" Neji asked wanting to know the answer to his question.

Seeing that he had managed to get under the skin of the Hyuga in front of him, Sasuke replied in a way that would make the boy a year older than him even angrier. "I don't have to answer you." Sasuke said in a bored and disinterested tone of voice as he turned around and left to go back to his team.

Naruto, watching the scene in front of him was feeling mixed emotions. On one hand he was happy because none of the people in the room were gunning after him but on the other hand he was extremely envious of all the attention that Sasuke was getting.

Like the how all of the girls around the age of got a blush of varying degrees of red on their faces as they noticed how good looking Sasuke was, Tenten was no different as she thought that the fire user from team 7 was definitely a cutie.

Seeing that team 7 was making their way to the place which the testing would begin, Lee decided that he would go and see just how good the Uchiha genius really was. Tenten noticing that her green spandex wearing teammate was lagging behind, she decided to turn around and talk to him.

"Come on Lee, what are you doing?" Tenten exasperatedly asked as she did not have a high tolerance when it came to her teammate and their sensei. With a weird look on his face, the taijutsu specialized ninja turned around to his teammates and replied to Tenten's question.

"You guys go on ahead, there is something that I want to test out." Lee said with a weird look on his face. Neji, not wanting to associate with Lee as he was a fairly big embarrassment was fine with that as it gave him a little reprieve from the "flames of youth" that he had to deal with every day.

Looking down from a railing above, the weights wearing ninja spoke to team seven. "Hey you with the black eyes, will you fight me right here and now?" Lee questioned before he jumped down onto the wooden floorboards below to formally challenge Sasuke.

"My name is Rock Lee, when you want to learn a person's name you introduce yourself right?" Lee questioned as he wanted to have a fight with another rookie of the year to test himself in preparation for his inevitable fight with Neji.

"Heh, so you know, Uchiha Sasuke." Sasuke coolly stated as he mentally prepared himself for the fight that was about to happen.

Getting into his sensei's famed Goken taijutsu stance, Lee spoke up. "I want to fight you, I want to test my skills against the offspring of the famous Uchiha genius ninja clan." said the green spandex wearing ninja as he looked directly at Sasuke before he spoke up once again.

Giving a wink towards the pink haired girl, Lee made his intentions clear what he really wanted out of this match. Acting like the spoilt child that he was, Sasuke didn't want what he considered his toys and didn't want them taken away from him even if he was not ever going to play with them.

Not caring about what Sakura was thinking about someone trying to steal her away from him, he spoke up as if it was only he and Lee in the room. "Challenging me, knowing the Uchiha name… frankly you're a fool. You're about to learn what the name means thick brows." The Uchiha clan heir stated to Lee in obvious reference to the kid's freakishly large eyebrows.

Naruto for his part was very eager to watch this match take place as Naruto thought that it would be a good way to see an opponent's skills while he didn't have to reveal his own.

_I don't know what type of ninjutsu that kid uses, but I will learn all of his tricks and copy it and then use it against him. _Sasuke Uchiha thought as he charged at Lee starting the spar between the two.

The first thing that the genin under the tutelage of Gai did was that he used his **Goken: Konoha Senpu! (Strong Fist: Leaf Whirlwind!) **And launched a high kick towards the head of Sasuke.

Seeing that he couldn't dodge the attack as it was coming too fast for him, Sasuke did the only that he could in this situation and that was block the attack Unfortunately for Sasuke, Lee was just way too fast and he didn't see to Lee increase his speed the moment that he got close to his target.

Thus the subsequent meeting of leg coming from Lee and the face of Sasuke was not a pretty one in the eyes of Sakura as she screamed in horror at seeing her crush losing so badly.

Thinking that his enemy was using some sort of ninjutsu or genjutsu to make it so that he couldn't block Lee's attacks, Sasuke decided to get serious and activated his sharingan Dojutsu to discern what it was that Lee was using.

Activating his Dojutsu, Sasuke's eyes changed from the normal, black colour into that of the bloodish red that the Uchiha clan were famous for. _So that's the sharingan _Lee thought as he watched how Sasuke charged at him once again, this time trying his best.

Just like last time Sasuke lost quite badly to Lee as instead of getting a punch to the chest like last time, this time Sasuke got a hard kick to the bottom of his chin.

Sasuke was in a state of severe shock as he tried to process the information that his eyes were giving him. _This can't be! The sharingan can't read his jutsu! _Seeing the look on the face of Sasuke, Lee decided to inform Sasuke of how he was beating him.

"Yes, my techniques are neither ninjutsu nor genjutsu." Lee stated to the Uchiha clan heir who could only grunt as he was sent flying into the air thanks to the ferocity of the kick that the green spandex wearing genin had given him.

"**Goken: Kage Buyo! (Strong Fist: Shadow of the Dancing Leaf!)"** The taijutsu specializing ninja shouted with exuberance as he jumped up into the air appeared in Sasuke's shadow as he prepared to use his next move, one which would end the fight between him and Sasuke.

Since Lee was the type of person who was extremely jealous of the genius type of ninjas who did not have to work anywhere near as hard as what he did for the same amount of results, this was why before Lee used his finishing move on Sasuke, the spandex wearing kid started trash talking to get inside the mind of the Uchiha clan heir.

"Yes Sasuke-kun, my techniques are just simple taijutsu, you may not believe it because it is so basic. They say that the sharingan has the ability to reveal all types of Nin, gen and taijutsu. It is true that reading ninjutsu and genjutsu which need chakra and hand seals to be performed for the technique.

But… taijutsu is a little bit different in that aspect. Even if you are able to read my movements, your body does not have the speed to react to what you see. Basically, even if your eyes can see where I am going to hit; if your body can't keep up to what your eyes see, then your sharingan is useless in battle." Lee lectured to the sharingan wielder who couldn't move at all from the pain that he was feeling.

Angered by the words coming from someone who thought that they were so much better than him; Sasuke managed to grunt out a few words. "What do you mean?" Sasuke angrily called out as he tried to process the meaning of what Lee was saying.

Unperturbed at what emotion Sasuke was using to fuel his question, Lee decided to answer the Uchiha clan heir in a tone that pissed him off even more than what he already was. "Do you know this? Among strong people, there are two types of ninjas.

Existing in strong people, there are genius types of ninjas and then there are hardworking ninjas. If your sharingan is a genius type from Uchiha blood, then I am a hard-working type who has only mastered taijutsu.

You could say that my ultimate taijutsu is the worst possible matchup for your sharingan and I will prove with this technique that hard work surpasses that of a genius." Lee declared as he loosened the bandages around his arms to prepare for the **Goken: Omote Renge (Strong Fist: Front Lotus.)**

Before that could happen though, there was a shuriken that pierced the bandages and made them stick to the wall. Lee looking to see who had thrown the piece of metal, he saw that there was a turtle that was right where the attacker would have been, had there not been smoke there to cover up the person's identity.

It was as if Lee had just looked into the eyes of death itself when he realised just who had summoned the over grown turtle. Releasing Sasuke from his grip, Lee dropped down onto the ground to face whatever punishment Gai-sensei was going to give him.

Sasuke, who was still too saw in that he couldn't move his body, was about to collide head first into the ground. Sakura, seeing this rushed over to Sasuke and lessened his fall by diving underneath him to take the impact.

Angry that he had been defeated by a genin, Sasuke just chose to stare contemptuously at Lee. Lee himself was just staring straight at the ground as the giant turtle started talking to Lee.

"Lee you know that technique is forbidden" the large water based reptile said in a disappointed tone of voice as he didn't want to see the kid betray the trust of Gai.

While Sasuke was getting a look over from Sakura, there was a discussion coming from the turtle and Lee. "You fool! You think that you can get away with using such a pathetic excuse?" the turtle questioned. Before Lee could come up with even a semi-decent reply, the turtle once again cut him off. "You already know what it means for a shinobi reveal his special techniques!" the turtle angrily said to Lee.

Naruto for his part was cursing the turtle for his timely interruption as he would have gotten to see the so called special move that he would hopefully come up with a counter for.

"Are you prepared to pay?" the turtle said in a final tone to which the green spandex wearing genin ninja nodded to which he spoke for the final time with Lee. "Then here comes Gai-sensei."

Once the smoke on top of the Ningame disappeared, there was a shocking sight for all of team 7 to witness, one so bad that it would give Sakura nightmares about the horrible fashion sense and personality. Standing on top of the turtle, there was a man who was wearing a larger version of the green spandex that Lee was wearing.

On top of that was a chunin flak jacket that wasn't zipped up. Like his student prodigy, he wore his Konoha headband around his waist as a form of belt, the other thing that he had in common with his student was that he had the weird leg warmers around his calf muscles.

While his clothing choice was bad enough in the eyes of Sakura, the pose that the man had struck when making his entrance was the icing on the cake of retardation.

The sensei of Lee had a large sway in his hips to the left. To make things worse, the man had one hand pointing straight up in the air while the other arm had his hand make a circle out of his index finger and thumb and hold it over his left eye. The final icing on the cake that was how stupidly funny and embarrassing the situation was, was that the man had the shiniest teeth ever imaginable.

"You guys are the epitome of adolescence." Gai shouted exuberantly whilst still in his pose. This was enough for the normally calm Naruto to lose it and started laughing quite loudly.

"Wow, he's a faggot! Better not drop the soap Sasuke or your bishonen looks may come back to bite you in the arse…literally. Hahaha!" Naruto said as he couldn't hold back his insults as to him, this was extremely funny. Sakura, while it was someone insulting her crush, she could not stop giggling from what Naruto had just said as it was extremely funny.

Sasuke for his part was looking scared for a moment of that coming to reality before he schooled his emotions to direct a look of absolute hate at Naruto for suggesting such a thing to the weird sensei.

Lee was an entirely different matter though as he did not like it one bit when someone insulted the man who he looked up to as if he was a father figure for the orphaned boy. "Hey! Stop insulting Gai-sensei!" Lee replied in an angry tone of voice.

Not one to get into a battle of words, Gai got the attention of Lee solely onto him. As soon as Lee turned around, the green spandex wearing sensei smashed Lee right in the kisser with his fist whilst shouting "you fool!"

"Sensei" Lee whined as he was almost crying, not from the pain threshold being broken but it was just an emotional trigger for the emotionally troubled boy.

Trying to stop Lee from crying although in the process actually making so bad that he started crying as well, Gai started speaking to Lee. "That's enough Lee; you don't need to say it." Gai said whilst kneeling on the ground.

What made the situation so bizarre in the eyes of all team 7 was that the sensei of team nine was crying almost uncontrollably. This was in conjunction with Lee who was also crying his eyes out along with having a bit of blood coming down the left side of his mouth.

Not much unlike a man recently coming out of an asylum, Gai started talking. "Yes! This is what the flames of youth are all about." Gai shouted with a lot of enthusiasm in his voice.

Seeing the look on Lee's face, Gai decided to cheer him up. "It's alright Lee! Everyone makes mistakes, youth and mistakes go together." This had the opposite effect as it made the tears coming out Lee's eyes borderline with the most generic Suiton jutsu that there was.

"Gai-Sensei!" Lee shouted as he started what was known by Tenten as the absolute punishment for some type of failure.

"Lee" the twenty six year old ninja shouted with equal passion as he opened his arms. To which the boy jumped in them and then a disturbing sunset via the beach genjutsu appeared and traumatized them all more than what Itachi did to Sasuke on the night of the massacre. The sad thing about all of this though was that Ningame, the summon turtle of Gai was crying along with them.

Putting his hand on Lee's shoulder, Gai spoke up. "You're just caught in between Lee. Your too old to be called a boy and not yet quite a man." Whilst Gai said this, the tears were still flowing freely down both his and Lee's faces.

"Now take off! I want you to do 100 laps around the practise field, now show me what you've got." Gai stated as he held his hand up high and proud pointing Lee in the right direction.

Not one to disobey an order from Lee unless it was very important, Lee nodded feverishly and replied to his sensei. "Yes Gai-sensei, no problem." Lee Shouted with tears in his eyes and his legs jogging to warm up the muscles.

Once again putting up the genjutsu, the Jonin-sensei of team 9 spoke once more. "Run into the setting sun, run and suffer" Gai said in a weird way and in a smaller voice he continued on from where he left off. "But don't mess up your hair." The eternal rival of Kakashi stated as he made his teeth sparkle in a totally unnatural way.

Before the duo that wore spandex went on their run around the practice field 100 times, it was Sakura who spoke up. "What about the chunin exams? There's no time for fooling around, you can't just go off and do whatever you want." Sakura said as she didn't think that there would be a Jonin that could be as irresponsible as what her own sensei was.

Bashful at the fact that he forgot about that fact, Gai scratched the back of his head in a gesture signifying that he forgot about the exams altogether. "Oh right, I forgot about that." It was then that the green spandex wearing Jonin took a good look at team 7 and thought to himself. _This must be Kakashi's team, I'll check them out._

"Tell me, how is Kakashi-sensei doing?" Gai questioned holding his fist under his chin with a contemplating look on his face.

It was then that Naruto asked the man in front of him his own question without giving any information on their sensei away to some freak. "Do you know him?" Naruto asked wondering why someone like his sensei would be so important when there was tons of other Jonin-sensei's out there.

Laughing to an inside joke that none of the four ninjas in attendance got, Gai replied to Naruto's question. "Know him?" Gai said as he chuckled to himself before he decided to show off a little bit.

It was then that Gai disappeared from sight and none of team 7 had noticed before he spoke up… right behind them. "Some people refer to us as eternal rivals." Gai stated, still holding his fist underneath his chin.

_This guy… _Sasuke thought has he guessed that the sensei moved even faster than what Lee did before when he was battling him. The same train of thought was going through Naruto's head as he wondered how he could get that fast.

Oblivious to the internal musings from the two male members of his eternal rival's genin students, Gai continued speaking. "50 wins and 49 losses, I'm stronger than Kakashi!" Gai called out as he wanted to _convince _Kakashi's students that the way of youth was the way to go if you wanted to get stronger.

_No way, his speed is faster than Kakashi's, is he human? _Sasuke thought to himself.

Seeing the look on the faces of team 7, Lee instantly rushed to the aid of his sensei even though he didn't already need it. "See! Gai-sensei is so cool!" Lee exclaimed showing his support of his sensei.

"I'm sorry about the trouble that Lee has caused you. Look into my eyes and except my sincere apology, also notice my handsome manly features." Gai said with a thumbs up and a blindingly bright smile on his face.

"Lee I think that you should accompany these fine young ninjas to the classroom so that you can begin the test." Gai stated as he threw a kunai at the shuriken holding his student's bandages up.

Seeing the throw, Naruto looked at Lee and noticed that Lee's hands were sprouting many calluses showing that he trained severely day in and day out. One that was said and Lee's bandages were wrapped up, Gai and Ningame disappeared in a plume of smoke.

When it was only the genin in the room, Lee spoke up to Sasuke. "Sasuke, actually I have not been totally honest with you. I said I wanted to test my skills against you and that is true enough but you are not really the one that I wanted to test them against. I lied to you when we were fighting before. I told you that I was the best genin here but there is another who is better than me, someone on my own team. I came here to defeat him, you were just practice, now you are a target and I will crush you." Lee declared which got a large rise out of anger from Sasuke as he hated being told that he was just a pawn in someone else's eyes.

With that said, Lee left to go and find his own team. Once Sasuke had calmed down enough, Naruto asked the black haired boy a question. "Sasuke, did you put me through a genjutsu recently with your sharingan?" Naruto questioned to his teammate who looked at him confusingly before he shook his head.

Seeing that Sasuke did not put him under an illusion, Naruto started speaking. "Well then, I cannot think of any words that would justifiably explain the haunting sights I have just seen." Naruto stated as he was referring to his ordeals with the two green spandex wearing ninjas.

* * *

><p><strong>These are all the base stats. (Not including sharingan, Kyubi mode or other power ups.)<strong>

**Naruto: **

**Ninjutsu: 2 Taijutsu: 1 Genjutsu: 1.5 Intelligence: 3 Strength: 1.5 Speed: 1.5 Stamina 4 hand Signs: 1.5 Total: 16/40**

**Gaara:**

**Ninjutsu: 3 Taijutsu: 0 Genjutsu: 2 Intelligence: 2.5 Strength: 0 Speed: 0 Stamina: 1 Hand Signs: 3 Total: 11.5/40 (There is a reason as to why his is so low and it will be answered later on in the story.)**

**Temari:**

**Ninjutsu: 2 Taijutsu: 2 Genjutsu: 1.5 Intelligence: 3 Strength: 2.5 Speed: 2 Stamina: 2 Hand Signs 1 Total: 15/40**

**Kankuro:**

**Ninjutsu: 2 Taijutsu: 1.5 Genjutsu: 1.5 Intelligence: 2.5 Strength: 2 Speed: 2 Stamina: 2.5 Hand Signs: 3 Total: 17/40**

**Kakashi:**

**Ninjutsu: 5 Taijutsu: 4 Genjutsu: 4 Intelligence: 4.5 Strength: 3.5 Speed: 4 Stamina: 4 Hand Signs: 5 Total: 34/40 (With sharingan activated, his stamina would go down as that drains his chakra heavily.)**

**Lee:**

**Ninjutsu: 0 Taijutsu: 3.5 Genjutsu: 0 Intelligence: 1 Strength: 3.5 Speed: 4 Stamina: 3 Hand Signs: 0.5 Total: 15.5/40**

**Oh and I have a question for you, why didn't Naruto just summon Gamabunta when he was battling Sasuke at the valley of the end? I smell a case of Plot-no-Jutsu right there.**


	12. Did you make it to the Milky Way

Walking out of the room where Sasuke lost his battle with the green spandex wearing ninja, they heard a familiar voice started speaking. "Oh, Sakura, you decided to come after all." The sensei of team 7 stated as he looked at his team. "Now you can properly take the exams." Kakashi stated as he saw the curious look on the face of Sakura.

"The truth is that this test can only be taken by teams of three." The silver haired Jonin stated to his three students who looked confused as to what was going on.

It was then that Sakura was the first one to speak. "Huh, but Kakashi-sensei, you told us that taking the test was individual choice, you lied to us." Sakura stated as she didn't like people who lied to her.

Not showing any signs of wincing from the accusation coming from his pink haired student, the silver haired Jonin-sense of team 7 replied to the words that came from Sakura's mouth. "If I had told you all the truth, Naruto and Sasuke would have pressured you into taking the exam. Even if you didn't want to… had Sasuke asked you to, you would have done it even if it wasn't in your heart. For the sake of Sasuke and Naruto… to an extent, you would have done it." Kakashi lectured to his team who nodded understanding the reasoning behind what he had just said.

It was then that the ever curious Sakura had a question on her mind and decided to get the answer. "So Kakashi-sensei, what would have happened had I not shown up?" Sakura questioned wondering if Sasuke and Naruto would have been able to continue on.

Being someone who was blunt when he had to be, Kakashi replied to his pink haired student's question. "Had you not shown up, the exam for Naruto and Sasuke would have been cancelled right here and they would not be allowed to go any further." The sharingan warrior clarified to Sakura who breathed out a thankful sigh indicating that she was happy that she chose to come today.

With one final words of advice from Kakashi saying that he was proud of them for coming today, team Kakashi went to the door that held the first exam and opened the doors not sure what to expect on the other side.

Walking into the room they saw that there were many upon many chairs and tables indicating that they were going to be having some form of written test that they would have to do. Now had Naruto not had his change in personality which caused a lot of other things to change, team 7 would have been very nervous about passing this part if the test was a team test as Naruto was not the sharpest tool in the shed.

Now though that Naruto was very smart, smarter than Sasuke was but not enough to dismantle Sakura from that spot, team Kakashi was confident they could pass as a team. The same could be said about Naruto individually as he was confident that he could pass on his merits alone.

As soon as Sakura walked in she felt heavily intimidated as all of the people in the room before her team entered the room were all staring at the three that made up team 7 judging them to see whether or not they would be a threat. It was then that the unease inside of Sakura turned into hate and anger as something stole her attention.

That something was the fact that her former best friend now arch enemy was jumping all over her crush in the attempt to get him to go out with her. Ino, opening her mouth started speaking to Sasuke. "I haven't seen you in a while I've been waiting in excitement to see you again Sasuke-kun." Ino said in the best seductive voice that she could manage as she tried to win the heart of the rookie of the year.

Seeing the look of displeasure on the face of Sasuke, Sakura thought that Sasuke hated Ino so much that he wanted to puke. Thus this was why she straight away jumped to the defence of her crush. "Get away from Sasuke-kun Ino-pig." Sakura vehemently shouted to the blonde haired girl pressing what little breasts she had onto Sasuke's back.

Seeing who it was that was calling her a pig, Ino saw that it was the girl who was her competition in getting Sasuke's affection. With a sneer, the blonde haired girl replied to what Sakura had just said, "Oh, well if it isn't Sakura, big ugly forehead as always." Ino said the thing that Sakura was most self-conscience about in an attempt to get her to back down.

Sadly that was not the case as the confidence that she had instilled into the girl to make her fight against anyone was used in the way that she didn't want to. That was Sakura using her confidence against Ino.

Before the squabble between two pre-teen girls began, there was a new voice that entered the conversation and turned everyone's focus on him. "You guys are taking this stupid test too? Oh well, don't die." Shikamaru stated in a bored fashion before leaning up against the wall.

Practically as soon as Shikamaru lay up against the back wall, there was a fourth voice that entered the conversation between the rookie nine. That voice was coming from the mouth of the Inuzuka clan heir, Kiba Inuzuka. "Hey, I found you" Kiba called out in a loud voice that got the attention of team 7 and team 8 and drew it onto him.

It was then that the painfully shy and meek Hinata Hyuga entered the conversation by stuttering a polite hello that was mostly directed at Naruto who she was struggling to see the old one in the new one that was wearing a totally different outfit that had none of the bright colours and his personality was also very different.

"It seems that we are all assembled in the same place once again." The member of the Aburame clan stoically stated to the group as it was the first gathering since the genin exams just about six months ago.

It was then that Kiba saw the type of clothing that Naruto wore and pointed it out to everyone. "Hey Naruto, what's with the new clothes, trying to act cool and be all like Sasuke-teme are you?" the boy that had a dog sitting on top of his head arrogantly stated drawing the attention of Ino, someone who was a major fashion critic and started talking to Naruto.

"Yeah right, as if he could ever be as cool as Sasuke-kun, while his clothes do look better, none of you can compete with Sasuke in terms of cool factor." Ino said while looking over Naruto which she managed to sport a small blush as this new Naruto was much better looking than the previous one. This was something that no one saw.

Annoyed at what people were saying about his choice in clothing, Naruto was a little snarky in his reply although no one could tell as he hid his emotions fairly well. "I do not care whether or not I look "cool" these clothes are just comfortable and very good for wearing when on ninja missions so that is why I changed my clothing style." Naruto said in a tone that gave off the hint that he didn't want to speak to anyone at the moment.

Not taking the hint, Kiba spoke up once again. "Heh and what's with the new change in personality Naruto?" Kiba said in a tone that told Naruto that he did not buy the new transformation and still thinking that the blonde haired boy was an attention seeker.

It was then that Naruto realised that Kiba was almost as dumb as his previous self and that meant that he had to be a little more forceful in his dismissal of conversation. "Kiba, please stop talking." Naruto said whilst holding a polite smile on his face. This action brought a snigger coming from Shikamaru as he now liked this new Naruto much more than the previous one he knew.

Before Kiba or anyone else could start speaking, there was a voice coming from a person who was not a part of the rookie nine ninja squad. The person in question was wearing a pair of circular glasses that framed his face and showed off the silver hair that was in a pony-tail.

"Hey, you guys should be more quiet." The boy with a leaf headband around his forehead said to the group of nine ninja. As the kid who was obviously older than what team 7, 8 and 10 were said this, he walked over to them and tried to start a conversation.

Looking at the man, Naruto guessed that he was in his late teens, early twenties. Paying extra attention to what this guy said, Naruto had this off feeling in his stomach saying that this guy was not someone that he wanted to get into a fight with at his current level. There was also the fact that his nose was twitching because there was something that was oddly familiar with his scent that reminded him of someone whose name had just escaped him.

"You guys are just rookies out of the academy right? Screaming around like little girls, this isn't a picnic. "The silver haired genin in disguise stated as he looked directly at Sasuke although no one could actually tell this as he was so far above their current level, it wasn't even funny.

It was then that the Uchiha clan heir asked the funny looking boy just who exactly he was. "Who do you think you are?" Sasuke said as he wanted to know if this was another strong competitor like Lee or Gaara.

Diffusing the tense situation with an almost carefree smile, the boy replied to the question of the current year's rookie of the year. "My name is Kabuto, Kabuto Yakushi and take a look around you." The aforementioned Kabuto said to the group of rookies.

Doing what the silver haired genin had just said, Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke looked behind them and saw multiple people staring at them with contempt in their eyes as Naruto guessed it was because the books that he had read that it was quite rare for a genin team entering the chunin exams in their rookie year.

"They are all from the hidden village in the land of rain, and they all have short tempers." Kabuto said as he used the stereotypes to the max when making this statement that Kiba took as face value when he looked at Kabuto and then at the rain village's genin.

"Well I can't blame you after all you guys are just rookie ninjas, you remind me of how I used to be." The silver haired genin said melancholy in an attempt to gain the trust of the Sasuke as that was the orders that Orochimaru had given him.

This gave Sakura a question that she wanted to know the answer to and being the confident girl that she was, she asked Kabuto without a care in the world whether or not if this was her first time in chunin exams.

With a polite smile on his face that Naruto guessed was faked as he had quite a lot of first-hand experience when it came to portraying a front that was totally different from what he was actually feeling inside as his childhood was a harsh one.

"No, this is my seventh time as these events are held biannually and this is my fourth year competing." Kabuto said with a bit of embarrassment as felt ashamed that it took this long to get his promotion. What Kabuto said just now was something that made Naruto even wearier about the guy as something just didn't add up about this Kabuto person.

This did not click in the mind of Sakura Haruno as she asked her next question to the glasses wearing Jonin in disguise. "Wow, so you must know a lot about this exam then?" Sakura questioned to the boy who just nodded and smiled.

"Hehehe" Kabuto chuckled as he stopped laughing before he started speaking. "Then I will share some info with you cute rookies with these ninja info cards." The silver haired ninja stated to the trio.

Naruto for his part was finding even more things about the guy in front of him that just didn't add up. _Why would he be willing to give out free info on all of the competitors to us? Does this mean that he has a lot of information on us as well?_

Sakura, being a curious person by nature as she had spent time with Ino as a kid and developed her habit of wanting to know lots of information which was probably why she spent quite a lot of time at the library. "Ninja info cards?" the girl questioned as she had never heard of them before.

"I have four years of information stored into these cards right here." Kabuto said as he gestured to the cards in his hand. "They look blank at the moment but to open these cards you need my chakra as it is impossible to do it any other way." Kabuto stated to which the paper in front of him changed from the blank paper it once was.

When the transformation was complete, Naruto looked down onto the paper and noticed that there was a fully detailed map of the elemental continent which showed how many people from attending the exams and which ninja village they hailed from.

Seeing the use of the cards right in front of him, Sasuke asked a question to Kabuto. "Do you have information on individuals on these cards?" the non-too polite boy asked the silver haired ninja and as his response he nodded.

Chuckling at the question given to him by the Uchiha clan heir, Kabuto nodded and spoke up. "Hehehe, do you have someone that you are worried about." Seeing the forehead twitch on Sasuke's face, Kabuto knew that he had just struck a nerve.

Dismissing this quickly, Kabuto started speaking to Sasuke. "Of course, I do have information on all of the participants but it may not be perfect, even you guys, say something about these guys and I will take a look for you Sasuke-kun." The medic ninja stated as he looked at the raven haired Uchiha.

"Gaara Sabaku and Rock Lee" was all that Sasuke said as he wanted to know if there were any weaknesses about the two that he could exploit. Naruto for his part was intently listening as well to hopefully pick up any useful information on his combatants.

Disappointed in the fact that there was no real challenge to that question, Kabuto voiced his thoughts to team 7 before using a jutsu to reveal the information that Sasuke wanted. "Oh, so you know their names already, this won't be fun at all." The medic ninja stated as he looked at the cards wondering what he would find about this Rock Lee person that his master's future body skin that interested Sasuke Uchiha so much.

"Ok, first is Rock Lee. He's a year older than you guys, mission history: D-ranked completed: 28 C-ranked completed: 12. His sensei is Gai. His taijutsu has improved greatly in the last year. Nothing is else is worth mentioning." Kabuto said as he looked over to the other side and started reading from there.

"Last year he gained attention as being a talented genin but he did not participate in the exams. Like you guys, this is his first time and his teammates are Neji Hyuga and Tenten." Kabuto stated letting the information on Rock Lee sink in before he started talking about the boy known as Gaara of the desert.

"The next one is Gaara Sabaku. Mission History: C-ranked completed: 8 B-ranked completed: 1 as a genin. Since he is from a foreign country I don't have much information on him but get this, all of the missions he's completed, he hasn't ever gotten even so much as a scratch on the missions." Kabuto stated before he paused to catch his breath before starting his lecture.

"Konoha, Suna, Ame, Taki, Kusa, Oto… many outstanding geniuses from these villages are here to participate in the exam. Well… the hidden sound village is small village just created recently so there isn't much info but the rest of the hidden villages are filled with talented youngsters." Kabuto lectured to which the confidence of Hinata dropped as she was fairly nervous.

Hearing what the glasses wearing ninja was saying about their village, there were three people from the village hidden in the sound that wanted to make a name for themselves. "Did you hear what that guy said about Oto? How about we play with them for a little bit?" Zaku stated to Dosu and Kin who nodded, albeit reluctantly for Kin as she didn't want to draw any attention to herself.

"Good idea, he calling us left-overs, how about we go over there and help him add into his info cards that shinobi from the sound village can be quite vicious." Dosu stated with an unkind gleam shining from his right eye, the only visible one as all of the others were covered in thick bandages.

Dashing towards the silver haired genin, Dosu prepared his melody arm to attack Kabuto with. Sadly this did not happen as the Konoha ninja dodged the attack. This didn't matter though as the weapon that Dosu was using to augment his taijutsu had an area of effect and the sound waves it produced were enough to destroy the glasses that Kabuto was wearing that.

Not only were the glasses destroyed, Kabuto dropped to the ground and unloaded the contents of his stomach onto the floor. When Naruto and Kiba saw the punch go towards Kabuto, they both heard a high frequency noise although it wasn't enough as to cause them any discomfort let alone pain.

"How pathetic, especially if you are a four year veteran of the exams. Write this down on the cards: _the three hidden sound ninja defeat future chunin's._" Dosu proudly claimed as he didn't want anyone underestimating his abilities.

Before anyone could comment on what had just happened, there was a large plume of smoke in the middle of the room and caught everyone's attention. The reason behind the smoke was because this was the entrance method of the proctor of the first exam. It was none other than Ibiki Morino. "Quiet down you worthless bastards." The special Jonin shouted to the classroom to which everyone nodded.

"I am Ibiki Morino and thank you for waiting. I am the examiner for the first test you will undergo if you wish to become a chunin." Ibiki said in a tone that made no one in the room question him.

Seeing the mess that had been created because of the kerfuffle; the more experienced ninja spoke up. "Hidden sound ninja stop doing as you please before the exam. Do you want to fail already?" Ibiki asked rhetorically to which the three genin ninjas from the village hidden in the sound nodded mutely and stopped bullying Kabuto.

Seeing that the best option in terms of getting to become a chunin was to concede defeat, Dosu spoke up. "I apologize, this is our first time and we got a bit carried away." The bandage wearing boy stated to Ibiki who just nodded and turned his attention elsewhere.

"Here's a good opportunity to say this. There will be no fighting without the permission of the examiner, even if permission is granted, killing your opponent will not be tolerated. Those pigs that fail to obey this rule will be failed immediately. Do I make myself clear?" As Ibiki said this, he was directly looking at the sound trio as they were the ones that had started all the commotion.

"We will now begin the first test in this year's chunin exams. Instead of your current seating arrangements, you will pick one of these tabs and sit in the seat assigned to you. We will then hand out the exams.

It was then that after the proctor had said this, everyone nodded and went over to the Ibiki and picked out there numbers on where to seat. Had Naruto been the same as what he was six months ago, he would have rushed forward to get his number as he was an impatient kind of person. However, with Naruto not rushing to get his number, Hinata did not get to sit right next to him like she would have wanted to.

Instead, Naruto got situated where he was sitting next to Shino and a random ninja from Takigakure. Preparing for the test in his mind, Naruto was confident that he would be able to combat any challenges thrown at him.

"Do not turn your tests over and listen carefully to what I have to say. There are many important rules to this test. I will write them on the board but questions will not be allowed so listen carefully.

The first rule is that you guys will start off with 10 points. This test is made up of ten questions" when Ibiki said this Naruto's confidence grew as he knew that he didn't have to answer many questions right and with their being not as many questions, there was less of a chance that Naruto would find himself answering a question that he didn't already know.

"Each question is worth one point but this test uses a subtraction system. Basically if you answer all of your questions right, you will keep all of your ten points but if you miss three questions, you will lose three points and only have seven points." Ibiki stated to the chunin hopefuls.

"The second rule is this. This is a team test. Whether or not you pass will be determined by how good the combined score of you and your teammates is. So each team will compete to see how many points they have at the end of the exam from the initial thirty points." The special Jonin said to the crowd of teenagers.

"The reason for this is that during the exam anyone caught by the testing officers doing sneaky activities, namely cheating will have two points subtracted for every offense. So there will be some people who all their points during the exam and will be asked to leave. Realise this, the pathetic ones that get caught cheating will not only be destroying their chances at becoming a chunin but also that of their teammates." Ibiki said to all the people in front of him.

"And remember the final rule. Those that lose all of their points and fail to answer any questions correctly will be failed along with their two other teammates." Ibiki stated as he liked to put fear into the hearts of the chunin hopefuls in front of him.

"The test will begin right now and it will end in one hour, begin!" the special Jonin from the hidden leaf village shouted as he got the first exam underway.

Sakura for her part, her confidence was much higher than what she initially predicted as she remembered that Naruto had gotten much smarter over the course of his tenure as a genin shinobi and that she had no real reason to be worried as the team would be able to complete it and complete the test well.

Looking at the questions on his page, Naruto was very grateful that he had the ability that allowed whatever one of his doppelgangers learn and transfer that knowledge to him or otherwise he would have had no chance in giving the correct answer as he the questions were just too hard.

Once having completed the cryptogram that was the first question, Naruto took the time to look up and see what exactly the people around him were doing and whether or not they were having a hard time with the questions just like he was. Looking up, Naruto realised that he was the only person around him that was doing the test the proper way.

The way how Naruto saw this was that the boy known as Shino who he went to the academy with was using his clan's trademark family style of attacking for a different purpose. That purpose was information gathering and the way how he was doing this was via having the bugs look at the answers of those nearby and getting them to come back to him and give him the answers.

This gave Naruto the urge to see how the other people were cheating to see whether or not he could get ideas to use. Looking over at that Hyuga that Sasuke was talking to before, was using his clan's famous bloodline.

Realising that the proctors were promoting the fact that if you could cheat in a good way and not get caught, then you would not lose any points for your cheating efforts, Naruto made up his mind on how he was exactly going to be stealthy enough to get this to work and it was only then that Naruto remembered a line from an information gathering book that he had read at the library.

What the book stated, which Naruto read heartily as it was written by the legendary Jiraiya of the_ Densetsu no Sannin_, stated that it didn't matter how flashy of a way you used to gather information, all that mattered was in the end no one could pin it on you for being the one who stole the answers, then it was the same as doing it discreetly with no one knowing that you even cheated.

Using his right hand, Naruto discreetly put his hand into his pocket where he carried his smoke bombs and gathered four of them in his hand and waited for the opportune moment when no one was looking and put his plan into action. When Naruto was sure that no one was looking at him, he flicked one of the smoke bombs towards Ibiki although not directly at him which blew up and got the attention of all of the chunin proctors towards the front of the room.

It was at this time that Naruto made his real move in which he threw the other three smoke bombs that were in his hand around the room which covered the whole place in smoke. While all of the commotion was going on, Naruto used a very familiar hand seal and said the name of the jutsu in his head. _**Kinjutsu: Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Forbidden jutsu: Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu) **_

Normally this would be enough for Naruto when he needed to use the jutsu but when he needed them to look like someone else; he had to use a jutsu that he hadn't used in quite a long time. That was the **Ninpou: Oiroke no Jutsu (Ninja Art: Ninja Centrefold no Jutsu.) **The difference about it this time compared to when he use to use it was that all of his clones that were using the jutsu were using a unique disguise as he didn't want anyone seeing just a female version of him; it was bad enough that everyone from his academy year would recognize that it was him using the jutsu.

When the smoke cleared, all of the men in the room were treated to the sight about 40 naked women of varying looks and sizes all posing in provocative positions in their birthday suits. Whilst this was going on, the two clones that Naruto had placed around Sakura were rapidly taking in information that pertained to the questions that he didn't already know.

Gaining control over the room that had just had a bout of anarchy, Ibiki started yelling. "Whoever caused this disperse these clones at once or I will find out who did it personally and I will kick you and your teammates out myself." Hearing the threat that Ibiki gave, one that Naruto guessed could be quite true, he decided to play it safe and dispel the clones.

As soon as that was done, Naruto started writing down the answers that he had acquired thanks to the brilliant mind of his female teammate Sakura and waited patiently for the test to be over.

Seeing what had just happened, everyone barring the rookie nine wondered what had just happened, especially a kid in green spandex who was shouting about how unyouthful that just was. To those who knew the old Naruto though, they could only gape at the amount of brass balls it must have taken to pull something like that off.

By the time that the 45 minutes came up, Ibiki started speaking once again indicating that it was now time for the final question. "Ok and now we will begin the tenth question." Ibiki stated in an intimidating tone which scared quite a lot of the genin in attendance.

"Now before we get to the final question, I would like to go over the added rules for this question. I'll explain now, these are the rules of desperation." Ibiki stated in a tone that brought a bit of uncertainty in the genin as they wondered what these new rules were.

**With Kakashi**

Whilst the genin exam was going on for Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura, Kakashi was in the Jonin lounge in which he was hanging with Asuma Sarutobi, Might Gai and one of the newer Jonin's in Kurenai Yuuhi. "It sure is boring without my team." Kakashi stated as he looked at the group who nodded in agreement.

Practically lying on the seat, the son of the Sandaime spoke up trying to lift the spirits of Kakashi. "Don't worry, you will be back doing missions soon." Asuma stated as he inhaled some of the nicotine inside of his cigarette.

Wondering just why Asuma was suggesting that his team was going to fail fairly quickly, the silver haired Jonin spoke up. "Oh and why is that Asuma?" Kakashi replied wanting to know whether the man knew something he didn't or just that he severely underestimated his team.

Asuma was not judging Kakashi's team because he did know something that the former ANBU captain did not know as he was the son of the current Hokage and that held quite a lot of sway when it came to hearing somewhat confidential information. "I heard that Ibiki is proctoring the first exam." Asuma said as he breathed out the smoke that he exhaled just a moment ago.

That statement alone from the son of the Sandaime Hokage made Kakashi wince as the chances of his team passing severely dropped just hearing who was proctoring the test. "Well that's definitely not going to make it easy for them is it?" Naruto said to Asuma who could only just nod.

The newest one out of the four to obtain the rank of Jonin was the female out of the group and her name was Kurenai Yuuhi. With her being a newer Jonin and someone who didn't know the dirtier parts of how Konoha was run, she didn't know just who exactly Ibiki Morino was. "Why is that?" the genjutsu mistress questioned curiously to which Asuma replied.

"Kurenai, you recently got promoted to the rank of Jonin so you probably don't know but Ibiki is a pro. He is Konoha's head in the department of torture and interrogation." Asuma stated to which elicited a frown and a worried look on the face of the sensei of team 8.

Deciding to go on further in his explanation, Asuma said what he thought what would be going on right about now in the academy. "There probably won't be any forms of physical torture whilst taking the test but they may be suffering from the mental kind of torture right about now thanks to his interrogation skills.

This made the red eyed genjutsu mistress quite worried as she didn't know whether the girl that she had gotten close to over the course of accompanying her to the academy would be able to make it since the girl was painfully shy and very meek.

**At the academy**

Now that the head of the torture and interrogation department for Konoha had the undivided attention of all of the genin in the exam, Ibiki started speaking about the rules for this the final question. "The first rule of this test is that you must decide whether or not you want to take it." Ibiki stated as he loved building the hopes of kids up and crushing them at a later date.

It was then that the girl that Naruto and the rest of his team had met in the alleyway where the boy from Suna had certainly gained the full attention of both Naruto and Sasuke. "What do you mean choose? What happens if we choose not to take the question?" Temari stated as she wanted to know what the catch was.

Putting on a bit of a sadistic grin on his face, the proctor of the first exam replied to the question of the blonde haired girl. "If you choose not to take the question your points will be reduced to zero and you will fail along with your teammates." Ibiki said to which there was an outcry that made him chuckle as they thought he was being unfair.

"And now onto the other rule, if you decide to take the test and answer incorrectly, that person will forever loose the right to ever participate in the chunin exams again." Ibiki stated to which all of the people went silent, mulling over the decision.

It was then that the heir of the Inuzuka clan jumped up and started shouting about how it was totally unfair. "What kind of stupid rule is that? There are guys here that have taken the test before." Kiba shouted to which Akamaru barked in agreement.

The only reply that the special Jonin of the leaf gave Kiba was that of a chuckle, one that made all of the people in the room very nervous. After about a minute when he had calmed down, Ibiki spoke up to answer the question of the canine based ninja. "You guys were just unlucky, this year it's my rules." Ibiki stated as he glared directly into the eyes of Kiba who backed down as the man was releasing his killer intent at the boy and dog combination.

When all hope seemed lost for quite a number of people, Ibiki brought a reprieve for these people. That was in the form of a way out. "But I am going to give people a way out. Those that aren't confident to take the test don't have to take it and come back next time to take it." Ibiki said to the crowd of genin ninjas.

"Now let's begin the tenth question. Those that do not want to take the test, raise your hand. Once your number is confirmed then you will be asked to leave along with your teammates." Ibiki stated to the group of ninjas. It was not long after that statement that the amount of chunin hopefuls started to diminish.

What was surprising to everyone that knew the girl properly, even to Hinata herself was that she steeled herself and managed to get past the tense situation without sticking her hand up. This was something that she was very proud of as to her, it was her improving and hopefully it would be enough that would make Naruto-kun take notice of her.

Naruto himself was a person that the upmost confidence in his abilities, maybe even a little bit arrogant some might say so he had no problems when the proctor asked this question to the group as he knew that whatever it was, he would face it head on and complete the task despite the difficulty it barred.

"I'll ask you one final time, your life is riding on the line with this decision. Do you want to risk it as this is your last chance to quit." Ibiki said to the group which there was one or two people who left at this point.

Seeing that there were no people that were going to stick their hand up, Ibiki decided that the test was now over. "Good decisions. Now everyone left remaining, I congratulate you on passing the first test." Ibiki stated to which a massive amount of relief passed through all of the people left in the room and this was something that was none more so felt by the heiress of the Hyuga clan Hinata Hyuga.

There was a massive feeling of self-accomplishment in the girl as she had managed to do something so daunting all without the help of her crush, one Naruto Uzumaki and she could not have been any happier with herself and Hinata knew that when she told Kurenai-sensei about this she would be just as happy.

"To the 63 people that are still in the room, you have passed the first and only written test of the chunin exams." Ibiki said as he could not get over the looks of shock and awe on the faces of the chunin hopefuls

It was then that Sakura wanted to know what the point of the tenth question was when they didn't have to answer it. "Wait! What do you mean? We already passed? What was the point of the tenth question then?" Sakura demanded as she wanted to know whether or not she could have gotten it right.

It was then that the genin in the room were forced to witness a truly scary sight, one even scarier than all of the fear that Ibiki placed into them before, that was the happily grinning face of the head of the torture and interrogation department.

"There never was a tenth question; well I suppose that the choice on whether or not to take the question was the question." Ibiki stated as he looked at the faces of the chunin hopefuls.

It was then that the blonde haired girl from Suna asked her question to the special Jonin. "Hey! Then what were the first questions for? What was the point of those?" Temari shouted out in anger as she didn't see the point of this whole test.

Ibiki's happy mood vanished at this question. "They were not pointless. They had already served their intended purpose. They were to test your information gathering ability." The scar faced special Jonin stated to the crowd.

"First the rules stated that the success of this test depended on a whole team doing well. This test puts pressure on the every member of the team to not mess it up for their teammates. The questions on the test though were not ones that mere genin could answer though. Because of that, I am sure that most people came to the conclusion that you were supposed to cheat to score points.

Basically the point of this test was to cheat. But those that fail to cheat to a high enough standard failed of course." At this point the special Jonin from Konoha removed his headband that covered up his horrifically scarred face for all of the genin to see. "Because sometimes information is more important than life itself and on the battlefield and on missions, people risk their lives to get their hands on it.

If the enemy or a third party notices you, there is no guarantee that the information will be accurate. I want you to remember this. Important information in your hands can be a powerful weapon for your comrades and the village so we had you gather information. This clearly separated those that weren't up to scratch and did not have the right abilities." Ibiki lectured to the chunin hopefuls.

Trying to wrap her head around the situation at hand, Temari spoke to hopefully get an answer that alleviated that problem for her. "But I don't understand the final question." Temari asked wanting an answer out of the large man.

"But question 10 is the true purpose of this test. Let me explain, the tenth question is the "take it" or "don't take it" decision that you will face on a mission that you will face on a mission. Obviously these were the painless choices.

Those who don't take it fail along with their teammates. Those who choose to take it could lose the chance to ever take it again, a true leap of faith." Ibiki stated gravely to the chunin hopefuls in front of him.

Seeing that it wasn't working properly, the special Jonin from Konoha chose to say it in a way that they would understand. "How about these two choices, say you guys become chunin. Your mission is to steal a secret document. The amount of ninjas and their abilities are unknown to you and of course there could be traps set up all around you. Now, do you accept the mission or not?

Because you don't want to die and you don't want to get your comrades hurt, can you avoid the dangerous missions altogether?" Ibiki asked in a rhetorical tone of voice. Before any of the people in the room could respond to his question, the scarred man spoke up again. "The answer is no!"

"No matter what the danger of the mission, there are some missions that you can't avoid. The ability to be courageous and survive through hardship, that is what it means to become a chunin of any village." When Ibiki said this, Naruto's spirits about earning one rank closer to the rank of Hokage just got a whole lot higher as he practically was the spokesperson for all of the traits that Ibiki had just said.

"Those who aren't willing to put their life on the line, those who cling to the uncertain future of "there's always next year" and then walk away from their chance, those types of trash who can only make cowardly choices don't have the right to become chunin!" Ibiki shouted with vehemence as he truly believed in this statement.

"Those who answered the tough question ten correctly, you will be able to survive any trouble you face in the future." As Ibiki said this, the confidence of the heiress of the Hyuga clan got more self-belief and felt as if now after hearing the speech of the man in front of her, that she could change her lifestyle for the better in becoming a chunin.

"You have made it past the first test in Konoha's chunin exams and your test is now finished. I wish you guys good luck." Ibiki said with a small smile on his face, one that looked much better than the grin that was on it before.

Before anyone could voice their jubilation at the fact that they passed the first test that was required to become a chunin, there was a loud bang in the middle of the room with some smoke covering up whoever it was that was behind the smoke. When the smoke dissipated, it revealed that there was a female wearing hardly anything at all, in fact the only things that she was wearing was a tan trench coat along with a similar colour of mini-skirt which covered up everything that would give her an arrest for public indecency. The rest of her body was covered in a tight fitting mesh bodysuit. It was none other than Anko Mitarashi.

"I am the wonderful, sexy and beautiful Anko Mitarashi!" Anko said as she held out a large banner behind her that stated all of the things she had just said. "I am the proctor for the second test.

Seeing the number of people that had made it past this time, Anko started a conversation with the scarred man. "63? This is about normal so I guess that there is nothing special in them." Anko stated to Ibiki who nodded as he wanted to let Anko have the shock of experiencing the gaki that put all of those nude shadow clones in the room as a distraction herself.

"Whatever, I'll at least cut them down in half by the end of the next test." Anko stated to which she looked at the group and saw a few nervous faces. Using this to her advantage, Anko tried to instil a little brand of her own fear into the gaki's. "Ahhhh, I'm getting excited. I'll explain everything once we've changed places." The purple haired woman stated to the mostly kids and some adults in front of her.

Doing what they were told, all of the genin that had just passed Ibiki's test followed the eccentric woman out to wherever it was that she was taking them to see what the next test would involve.

**Forest of death**

When they arrived at their destination, Anko spoke up to the chunin hopefuls getting their attention. "Welcome to the sight of the second testing place for your exams. This place is officially known as training ground 44 but unofficially, the locals like to call this place the forest of death." Anko stated as if she was some form of tour guide civilian.

Taking in a good look at where their test was going to place, Sakura was fairly creeped out as the forest of death looked very intimidating. Naruto was wondering what types of animals and plants there were in there as the place certainly gave off the vibe that it was survival of the fittest. Sasuke was contemplating how many powerful opponents he would get into fight in the forest of death.

"You will soon find out why it is called the forest of death." Anko deviously stated with a smile on her face as she looked at all of the genin seeing which one looked like they were about to shit there pants the quickest. Unfortunately there was no one genin who stood out from the rest although that Hyuga girl looked like a fairly good target.

"But before that can happen, by law I am required to give you a day off so that you can prepare for the upcoming test tomorrow. I only brought you here so that you would know where to go tomorrow. Now since I have stated everything that I needed to say, I'm going so you might want to as well." Anko stated to the genin who all looked relieved in their own ways, even Gaara as this would give him some time to get lots of food into his stomach beforehand.

"Oh and before I go, I will give you one bit of advice because I'm such a nice person. You'll want to pack for five days. Ciao" the purple haired special Jonin said before she left the place via the use of the **Ninpou: Shunshin no Jutsu (Ninja Art: Body Flicker no Jutsu.)**

Seeing that everyone was leaving going their own ways except for a few teams that were standing around planning their next test in advance, Naruto left the forest of death entrance to go and get as best prepared for the forest of death as he could hoping that he would be able to obtain the rank of chunin after everything.

The moment Naruto left the training ground, he headed straight for the library as like practically every other time that Naruto needed help after his transformation as a person and as a ninja, the library was the place that held all of the answers.

Getting into the place thanks to the use of the **Ninpou: Henge no Jutsu (Ninja Art: Transformation Jutsu) **the blonde haired boy scoured the place from book to book trying to gather any and every bit of information that he could get his hands on about the forest of death.

This came via the use of the **Kinjutsu: Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Forbidden Jutsu: Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu) **and using twenty of the doppelgangers to learn as much as he could about the place.

When that was done about 1 hour later with Naruto knowing which plants and animals he should and should not eat if he wanted to stay healthy, Naruto felt that he should go and train just that little bit more as he was feeling self-conscience about the fact that he might have spent more time during the changing of his personality training his mind and not training enough in his shinobi skills.

The way how Naruto was going to do this was to try and gain a special jutsu that he would be able to use in case the times ever got tough in the jungle. This was hard for Naruto as since he was a genin in rank, he was restricted to B-ranked jutsu's at the library when he wanted to learn one so he did the best he could given the circumstances and picked up a book on intermediate wind element control and jutsu's that was written by someone called Danzo Shimura.

Picking up the book, Naruto made his way to training ground 7 which was the only place that he could freely train as his apartment was too small for anything like that and he would be shunted out of other places to train thanks to him being the container of the Kyubi no Kitsune.

When Naruto got to the place, he decided to do some testing to see just how far he had come in wind elemental manipulation and whether it would make a difference in combat on an enemy ninja. Using the skills and knowledge he had gained from his clones the previous day.

Once Naruto had taken off his grey jacket along with his red long sleeve t-shirt so that he would not get his clothing all sweaty from his training, Naruto placed his left palm on the top of his right forearm and did the wind elemental composition he learnt the day before. When Naruto removed his hand so that he could look at the work he had done, Naruto noticed that there was a small cut on his arm that drew about a teaspoon's worth of blood from his body as the wound quickly healed thanks to the Kyubi.

Despite knowing that it would take a lot longer to heal as none of the other people would have the Kyubi inside of them, Naruto was far from impressed as he wanted something that could end the opponent on first hit and not something that would take about an hour to make a difference in a battle.

Seeing what he needed to do, Naruto went over to a different tree from the one that he used last time and called out his favourite training jutsu. That was the **Kinjutsu: Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Forbidden Jutsu: Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu.) **Using the jutsu, Naruto created this time about 75 clones as he wanted to push to the limits and get this down to a finer degree. What Naruto did not know was that using the jutsu on that large of a scale made the Kyubi pour a bit of its chakra into his system. While it was not enough to do anything significant, it was enough that it made Naruto much more aggressive as a person while his training style was in effect.

Whilst the clones were doing the training exercise in getting the cut on the leaf to be a much sharper, more precise and cleaner cut, Naruto looked at the book to see what was next that he could do himself to make him a better ninja in the art of wind release.

Reading thebook, Naruto came to the realisation that now with the skills he learnt yesterday, he was supposed to use them in conjunction with existing jutsu's to make them even stronger. Seeing the logic in this that the cutting power of the leaves would make his **Fuuton: Fudangan no Jutsu (Wind Release: Air Bullet Jutsu)** and turn it into the much more powerful **Fuuton: Renkudan no Jutsu (Wind Release: Drilling Air Bullet Jutsu)**, a technique so powerful that even the One-tailed Shukaku was known to use it made Naruto absolutely giddy about the prospect of using the jutsu, albeit on a smaller scale than the Ichibi.

Firing off his **Fuuton: Fudangan no Jutsu (Wind Release: Air Bullet Jutsu) **at the trees around him to get better and more proficient in combining the leaf cutting exercise into his jutsus so that it became second nature to him, Naruto was slowly but surely destroying the training ground via the use of the wind element which was cutting bark of trees.

Halfway during the training session, Naruto dispelled the clones so that he could get the experience from them as he ate and waited as his chakra reserves replenished themselves thanks to the food he was ingesting.

When Naruto found out that the clones could cut the leaves quickly and with a smooth surface, Naruto got read the shinobi book to see if there was anything in there that would give him an idea on how to get better at it. Indeed there was some information that would help him get better as a ninja.

That was that to get better with the wind element, you needed to cut stronger objects to get better at it with the culmination of the intermediate training needing you to cut through a waterfall. With the book suggesting that Naruto should cut objects like sticks before he moved onto thicker pieces of wood, Naruto knew exactly what he was going to do for the rest of the day's training session.

By the end of the day and at around about 10pm at night, Naruto finally called it quits on his training session and went back home happy with the progress he had made in just one day.

By two hours to midnight when Naruto had stopped his training, he had managed to get his ability in the cutting wind to that where he could cut a fairly large stick cleanly in half almost as cleanly as what a person using a bandsaw could.

This added ability in the cutting wind made it combined with the fact that whenever Naruto did the hand seals for the **Fuuton: Fudangan no Jutsu (Wind Release: Air Bullet Jutsu), **Naruto actually made the far more formidable **Fuuton: Renkudan no Jutsu (Wind Release: Drilling Air Bullet Jutsu)** come out as standard instead.

The power of this jutsu was so strong in the eyes of Naruto that not only could it probably cut through a body all the way up until it hit a bone but it also could knock down a small tree with the combined power of the cutting wind which made it easier for the pressurized wind to get through a tree's initial defences and make the part above where the jutsu hit fall over from the impact and how deep the cut was.

With his training done for the day, Naruto made his way home so that he could finally prepare for his second exam and get a decent night sleep for the test which started at 9:30 in the morning.

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><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

**Naruto:**

**Ninjutsu: 2.5 Taijutsu: 1 Genjutsu: 1.5 Intelligence: 3 Strength: 1.5 Speed: 1.5 Stamina 4 hand Signs: 1.5 Total: 16.5/40**


	13. to see the lights all faded

**Author's Note:**

**Ages: Naruto and Karin: 13**

**Sasuke and Sakura: 12**

**To the people who have questions for my stories and have an account here on fan fiction but have private messaging disabled, don't expect me to reply to your questions as I will not be doing it in the chapter itself. This also goes for the people who like to have an account where private messaging is blocked and then make a completely pathetic abuse rant about my story and yet not leave any way of me replying back justifying how I have handled my story.**

**Warning! This chapter as a lemon in it and it will be fairly graphic.**

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><p>When Naruto arrived at the sight of where the second test for the chunin exams was being held, Naruto looked around and noticed that he was one of the first few waiting around.<p>

During this time that Naruto had to himself, he spent one last time reading over the book that he had picked up the previous day about wind manipulation and read that you were able to channel the chakra through all shinobi weapons though the general kunai and shuriken made you get much less bang for your chakra as they were not made out of the tougher metals. Using his time before the exam, Naruto gave himself a crash course in channelling his element through the kunai before the exam started.

Eventually after ten minutes of waiting, everyone came so it was now time for Anko Mitarashi to start the second round of the chunin exams.

"Now before we start the test, there is something that I need to pass out before we start the test." As the purple haired Jonin said this, she held up in her left hand a group of papers, one enough for each genin to fill out. "You must sign these agreement forms." Anko said with a cheerily false smile on her face as she tried to intimidate the genin, for some, this was working quite well.

Wondering what they were for, some random chunin hopeful from Takigakure asked what the forms were for. This brought Anko's weird sense of humour as she laughed at her own joke, one which none of the other people in the immediate area did. "You see, there will be deaths in this exam and if I don't have you sign these, it will be all my fault." The purple haired girl said with a grin on her face.

"I am going to explain the second test soon. After that you can go and sign the forms and check back at the booth behind me for the final rules that you will need to know." Anko stated in a professional tone of voice to which the genin nodded and listened intently to see what the rules of the test were.

"I'll now explain the second test. Simply put, you will attempt the ultimate survival test." Anko stated with a pause as she allowed the genin in front of her the chance to take in the information before continuing on from where she left off. "First, I will explain the area in which the test will take place." Anko said regaining the attention of the chunin hopeful.

"Around training ground 44 there are 44 gates. Inside the forest of death there is a tower in the centre which is the place where you will be meeting up. The quickest way to the centre is to take the river in which goes directly from one end of the training ground to the other side via the centre tower. Since the training ground is set up in a circle fashion, the radius from wherever you start your test is 10km.

During the survival part of the test, you will be asked to complete a certain task. Using your many skills as a ninja, you will compete in a no holds barred scroll battle." Anko stated as she was now getting to the fun part of the pre-test warm up.

When someone from the crowd of genin asked what a scroll battle consisted of, Anko obliged to tell the kid what the answer was. "You will fight over these two scrolls; one is labelled as heaven while the other is labelled as earth. There are 63 people here so that means there are 21 teams. Half of you will be getting the heaven scroll whilst the other half plus the additional team will be getting a earth scroll." Anko stated to which the genin nodded, wondering what the importance of the scrolls were.

"To complete this test, you will need to make your way through the forest navigating past all of the friendly wildlife and get to the tower with a set of both scrolls." Anko said to which the gears inside the chunin hopeful's minds realised that they would have to fight one another.

As if the fact that no matter what, at least half of the teams were destined to fail at this point, Anko decided to make things even worse for the genin wanting to attain the rank of chunin. "There is a time limit 120 hours, exactly five days. Oh and if you think that you will be allowed to pack whatever food you have previously prepared, you are sadly mistaken as we will be confiscating all of it as you need to be ready for the unexpected." The purple haired Tokubetsu Jonin said as she had a rather malicious grin on her face when she looked towards the genin.

This statement alone elicited a major response from the Akimichi clan heir alone as he had packed practically his whole bag with food. "What! What about dinner?" The boy shouted as he looked as if he had never gone a day without gorging on food.

Uncaring to what the fat boy was going through, Anko spoke up amusing herself when she used "Anko methods" when it came to cheering the boy up. You're on your own. The forest is full of all kinds of food, just watch out for the man-eating beasts, the venomous insects and the poisonous plants." Anko said in an offhand manner which only deflated the boy's spirits even more.

Continuing on from where she left off before she was interrupted, Anko spoke more about the test that the genin in front of her would be taking. "And it's not even likely that 10 of you will pass. As the days go on, the distance to the tower will become longer, the time will become shorter and the forest is crawling with enemies so you will not get much sleep. So not only will some people fail from losing the scrolls but some will also die from the severity of the conditions you guys will be going in." Anko declared to the genin who a few of them gulped as they were quite nervous.

Starting on a semi-new subject, Anko talked to the genin about what could get them to fail. "Now I'll talk about what will disqualify. First those that don't make it to the tower by the end of the five days holding both of the scrolls will be disqualified automatically.

Second, those who lose a teammate in the forest of have a team member killed by an enemy will be automatically disqualified. As a rule, there is no quitting in the middle of the test as you will be stuck in the forest for the remaining however many days.

And the final rule is this: you must not look in the scroll until you make it to the tower." Anko said with a tone of finality that just dared someone stupid enough to ask the question. For her happiness, there was someone that was arrogant enough to ask the lady wearing nothing at all what would happen if they opened the scroll.

That person was Kiba Inuzuka. "Oh yeah? What would happen if you did open the scroll?" the boy with a dog on top of his head asked to the crazy snake lady.

Giggling in such an over the top fan girl mode which thoroughly creeped out everyone but two people with those two people being the girl's former sensei and the jinchuuriki of the Ichibi no Shukaku. "That'll be a surprise for whoever does it. A chunin will be asked to handle sensitive and important information. This is a test to test your trustworthiness." Anko stated to the canine based ninja who nodded and back tracked a little bit as the lady was scary in his own mind.

"Now, that's it for the explanations. Exchange your three forms for your scroll then choose a gate to start from and wait for the signal to start." Anko said to which all of the teams got ready for the exam.

What Naruto did not know about these exams though as he had not even noticed it yet, was that there was a certain red haired girl taking part in the exams just like he was. Had he known then he would have done his upmost best to get in touch with Karin-chan so that he could catch up with his favourite female.

"Everyone follow an instructor and go to your gates! The test will begin in thirty minutes!" Anko shouted out so that the genin knew what they had to do and got down to it.

Thirty minutes later and the chakra enhanced voice of the sultry woman was loud enough so that everyone at a gate would be able to hear what she had to say. "The second test of the chunin exams begins now!" Anko shouted as the gates that were operated by a seal opened and allowed the competitors to go and compete in the survival test that pitted them all against each other.

**Inside the forest of death**

Not even two minutes after the announcement that the test was underway, there was already a battle between genin going on and the Konoha team had the advantage thanks to the fact that they had a member of the Aburame clan on their team who had an innate knowledge of the forests' wildlife.

A ninja from the hidden sand village spotted team 8 standing out in the open and he chuckled to himself thinking that it couldn't get any easier when it came to getting an opponents' scroll. He was wrong though, dead wrong as the Aburame clan member had set up a trap and was reaping the benefits of it.

What that plan was, was to have Shino use his ability to communicate with the wildlife that made up the forest of death and use them to fight for him and use them as a distraction for Hinata and Kiba to attack them.

The ninja from the hidden sand, whilst he was chuckling to himself thinking about how easily he was going to win the battle did not realise until it was too late that there was something stuck to his arm sucking out his blood at an alarming rate.

Surprisingly, it was not Shino who decided to comment on the outcome when all three of the ninjas that made up the only other team from their village to make it through apart from team Sabaku to make it into the forest of death that decided to comment about how the three Suna shinobi fell to the ground from lack of blood pressure thanks to the jumping leeches.

It was Kiba. "The leaf village's jumping leeches will sense life forms and attack in a group. Five minutes of sucking your blood and you will be sleeping in the next world." Kiba said to which Shino was impressed and nodded at the statement as it was true to the T.

With what Kiba said now done, team 8 ransacked the team from Suna's bodies to find the scroll that would allow them to move onto the third and final round of the chunin exams.

**With Team 7**

Hearing the screams of the team that got defeated by a bunch of leeches; Sakura spoke to her team as she was having second thoughts about entering the forest of death a moment ago. "Was that a human scream that I just heard?" Sakura questioned to her teammates to which Naruto just tried to boost her morale up as that was something that would do wonders to coming out alive and able to participate in the final round of the exams.

"Yes, that was a scream coming from a human. Don't worry though, as long as we work together and keep our guards up all the time, we will be safe." Naruto stated in a softer voice than what people like Iruka would expect him to use. Thanks to the words coming from Naruto, Sakura's confidence in coming out with not only her life but also the two scrolls that were needed to move onto the next part of the exam went up quite high.

Feeling an urge to go to the toilet, Naruto signalled his team to a halt as he spoke to them. "Sorry guys, but I need to go to the toilet." Naruto said to his team to which they nodded as they knew that Naruto went to the toilet more often than what normal people did.

Going behind a tree because he didn't want to get separated too far from his team and yet be far enough away so that he didn't invoke the unnecessary wrath of his pink haired female teammate.

**With Sasuke**

While Naruto was busily releasing his bodily fluid, a person in disguise as Naruto came out from where Naruto left and started talking about how he now felt more relieved compared to before. When Sakura said for Naruto to stop it as she, as a lady did not deserve to hear it. Sasuke decided that it was time to step in take decisive action.

As soon as Sakura suggested starting their journey again, the Uchiha clan heir lunged at Naruto and gave a vicious punch to the cheek of Naruto to which Sakura spoke to Sasuke about it being too much.

"What was that for?" the fake Naruto said annoyed at what his supposed teammate had just done to him. Uncaring about what he the "Naruto" felt, Sasuke spoke up.

"Where is the real Naruto?" Sasuke demanded with a sense of finality in his words when he looked at the fake Naruto. Nervous that he had been found out by the Uchiha heir, the person in disguise tried one last final attempt to fool them that he was the real Naruto.

"What are you saying all of a sudden?" the boy questioned as he rubbed the blood off of his face from where Sasuke had just hit him. Annoyed at the pathetic attempt to try and save face, Sasuke spoke giving no room for a counter argument.

"You're a loser who is worse than Naruto at transforming. "You're shuriken pouch is on your right side when he is left handed and the main difference is that you only have two whisker marks on your cheeks compared to the three that he has." Sasuke stated blandly to which the disguised ninja cursed and let loose his hold over the **Ninpou: Henge no Jutsu (Ninja Art: Transformation Jutsu.)**

Once his hold on the academy standard jutsu was undone, the man who had an Ame headband across his forehead whilst wearing the country's mask, the boy charged at Sasuke.

For the Uchiha heir, this was the perfect time for him to test out the new jutsu that he had learnt a while ago that he never had the time to use in battle as he was getting familiar with other jutsus. This was the perfect time to get battle experience with the jutsu. Calling out the name of the jutsu, Sasuke let a barrage of fireballs come out of his mouth aimed directly at the enemy.

"**Katon: Hōsenka! (Fire Release: Mythical Fire Flower Jutsu!)** The sharingan warrior shouted as his jutsu came to life. While this was happening, the Uchiha clan heir activated his clan's famous bloodline as he wanted to test it out more against better opponents.

When the opponent named Oboro threw the kunai in his hand at Sasuke, the raven haired Uchiha thought that this would be the best time to use his sharingan to the full extent just like what the scrolls stated.

The way how he did this was via using his sharingan's slowing down of movement to practically a standstill and used his chakra so that his foot struck to the thrown Kunai and caught it on the sole of his ninja sandal.

All in the same movement, the raven haired boy flung the kunai from his foot and made the kunai sail through the air at the rain ninja. Oboro, seeing this was able to dodge the flying kunai barely as he was in mid-air.

This was a big mistake that Oboro made and would be one that he would not realise until it was far too late as Sasuke had jumped into the air with quite a lot of speed with a kunai in hand and used it to pierce through the lungs of the rain ninja which made blood spurt all over the face of the Uchiha clan heir.

With a confident smirk on his face, Uchiha Sasuke said the final words that ninja from Ame no Kuni would ever hear and they were "Just relax for a moment and you will be dead." The Uchiha said with a smirk of pure confidence with a touch of arrogance on his face.

**With Naruto**

Whilst Naruto was preparing himself to go to the toilet, the two other members of team Oboro were preparing themselves for their ambush on Naruto and to get it done quickly so that they could meet up with their teammate and take down the two remaining members of team 7. This did not happen however as they were severely underestimating the skills of one Naruto Uzumaki.

Being arrogant in the fact that they thought that this would be as easy as cake, the two jumped off of the branch in which they were standing on and leapt at Naruto's still standing form as he was letting out liquid with a kunai in each hand poised to take out the blonde haired ninja.

Naruto, having extensive hearing abilities thanks to the Kyubi was able to pick up a rustling which was where the two rain ninjas leaving their hiding spots to take him out. Being in a bind as he could either put his manhood back in his pants which would take time and then have to guess which way to dodge or he could throw kunai without looking behind him and then turn around to see what was wrong but at the cost of leaving what would be dubbed as the 'anaconda' in the future out in the open.

Quickly making his mind up, Naruto decided that the second option was the better one as he thought that this would be a good time to channel his wind chakra into weapons in battle and see how well they did. Doing just that, Naruto channelled the elemental composition of wind into the blades and threw them behind his back without even looking.

Not to be done with that, Naruto brought his hands to doing hand seals in front of his body and pushed some wind from his chest the way that the kunai were going to make them even more deadlier. This was in the form of using the **Fuuton: Reppusho no Jutsu (Wind Release: Violent Wind Palm Jutsu.)**

If it wasn't hard enough trying to dodge the blades of metal that were flying fast towards them before they were augmented by Naruto's wind ninjutsu, then they were surely impossible to dodge now that they had their speed had been boosted up immensely.

The sound of the piercing flesh that was the rain Nins taking a body hit that went through one side of their body and out the back with little resistance as it cut through the internal organs of the genin and they dropped to the ground like concrete. Seeing that he had managed to get the job done with so little effort, Naruto sighed as he was hoping for something a little more challenging.

With a sigh marring his face, Naruto spoke in a dejected tone of voice as he wished that there was more combat involved. "Well that was an anti-climactic ending." Naruto said before he went to where his teammates were so that he could meet up with them.

Seeing that Naruto was alive, Sakura started speaking. "Naruto you're alive." Sakura said with relief obvious in her voice as she did not want to lose a teammate so early on. "How did you manage to beat your opponents?" Sakura questioned as she wanted to know if the other people were defeated just as easily as what the person Sasuke-kun defeated was.

Being the calm and precise type of person that he was, Naruto spoke in a tone that was punctual and quick to the point. "They were over confident. They did not know my abilities. They are now dead." Naruto stated to which Sasuke nodded as that was practically the way how his fight went with Oboro, only the raven haired Uchiha wished he was in Naruto's position so that he could face a two on one situation.

Once everything was sorted out and Naruto had ransacked the body of the rain ninjas in which he picked up a heaven scroll. It was too bad for team 7 as they had already gotten one of them from the start of the exam which meant that they would have to go and find a new team to do battle with. Once that was done team seven made their way further into the forest to find a new enemy to beat and take their scroll.

An hour of careful and cautious jumping on top of the tree line at a slow pace, team 7 came into a small clearing that they would have to pass to get back into the tree line on the other side.

When they dropped down into the clearing though, the trap that a person wearing what looked to be a Kusagakure Headband on his forehead used a majorly overpowered version of the Fuuton: Daitoppa no Jutsu (Wind Release: Great Breakthrough Jutsu.) The jutsu was overpowered so much that it instead of being classified as a C-rank Jutsu, it would instead be classified as a High B, borderline A-rank Jutsu. This meant that despite Naruto knowing the tree climbing which allowed him to stick to surfaces; he was not able to combat the brute force coming from the jutsu that the Kusagakure ninja used on him.

**THUD!**

Knocking his head on the ground when he landed caused Naruto to feel a severe case of light headedness, it was truly a miracle how he managed to survive the fall and still have conscious thought when he hit the ground would be a mystery for all civilian doctors.

Looking up, Naruto saw a looming shadow and tried to take a good look at it and it was then that he noticed that there was something familiar about the animal that the shadow was attached to. It was none other than the daughter of the snake clan king, Shakudo!

"Shakudo-sama?" Naruto hesitantly questioned as he wondered what it meant that he was seeing her right now when he thought that he was going to get eaten by a huge animal thanks to the blast of wind that nearly knocked him out.

When the princess of all snakes, who had been summoned by that detestable, repugnant and repulsive Orochimaru had summoned her to take someone out for him, she thought that it was so beneath her but since he was a summoner for the clan and the clan honoured itself on its traditions, one of which was that they always obeyed their summoner's wishes, even if they did not like them one bit.

When the person in front of her called her by her first name though, she was absolutely shocked! How could some pathetic genin have the knowledge of who she actually was? The purple snaked fumed as she thought that someone was giving out private information like that and it was then that she turned her attention to the person who called her that name so she could see what her lunchtime snack looked like and whether or not they had any meat on them.

Seeing a giant blonde mop of hair on her meal made Shakudo reminisce about that Uzumaki boy that her father had told her to go and see as he was going to be the future of the clan in terms of human summon partners.

Seeing that this kid had bright golden blonde hair along with a Konoha headband around his forehead made the purple rattlesnake used all of her senses this time around to see who it was that was in front of her. When she used her highly developed sense of smell on the boy she was shocked, it was Naruto, the boy that she had come to like from their first meeting when she terrified the crap out of him.

It was not as if Naruto had an easy time recognizing the snake because the reptilian creature had recently gone through quite a large growth spurt since the last time she had met with Naruto. While previously she was about five times the size of one of the regular anacondas that you could find outside of Mt Myobushi, she was now double that size she was when Naruto and Shakudo first met.

Now instead of being large enough that she could ate him before with a bit of discomfort, the princess of the snake clan would be able to not only eat Naruto but his other two teammates all in one go with not even the slightest bit of discomfort. "Naruto-kun, well I certainly was not expecting you to be the one that I was tasked to kill."

When the large purple rattlesnake stated this Naruto tensed as he did not know what to do since he wanted to so badly to get into the snake clan as that was why he had chained so much as a person; all the changes that he had gone through were all thanks to the reptile that was now in front of him and weighing up the prospect of killing him.

Thankfully for the life of Naruto, Shakudo decided to shed some light on Naruto about the orders that she had been given when it concerned the blonde haired boy in front of her. "You don't have to worry Naruto-kun, I was ordered to prevent you from interfering with the only other summoner on our contract. Thankfully he never mentioned anything of killing you." Shakudo said to Naruto to which the blonde haired boy smiled as relief was flooding into his system as he didn't want to fight Shakudo-sama since he had gotten along well with her.

Curious as to who the summoner who wanted him out of the way, Naruto asked the large snake in front of him who the human representative for the snake clan was. "Excuse me Shakudo-sama, but who exactly is the person that summoned you?" Naruto questioned as he had a sneaking suspicion on who it was and he didn't like that thought at all as he never wanted to be associated with the likes of Orochimaru of the_ Densetsu no Sannin._

Knowing that Naruto would not like who they were associated with as their human representative, since Naruto was from Konoha and knew just how bad Orochimaru truly was; Shakudo carefully chose her words. "It is regrettable that my grandfather allowed the one you know as Orochimaru sign our contract when he was your age as we had no idea how evil he would turn out back then since he had no trace of evil in him then.

When we found out just how corrupted he was we weren't able to kill him as not only is he very powerful but with our clan values, we will not kill other members of the clan no matter what the circumstance is." The princess of the snake clan said in a reserved tone to which Naruto nodded to them as he knew exactly what it felt like to have someone else tarnishing the way people looked at you felt.

It was then that Shakudo spoke again getting the attention of Naruto who was reminded some slightly unpleasant thoughts. "Despite this, two humans on out summoning contract are allowed to kill one another as they do not fall under the same jurisdiction as snakes; they are a different kind of member of the clan as they represent us to the outside world.

If you join the clan that is one of the tasks we will expect you to complete in the recent future if you manage to show your worthiness and make it to the chunin exam third and final round. We would get rid of him ourselves, though our traditions state that we cannot do it ourselves." Shakudo lectured to Naruto who gulped as he wondered how he would be able to take out one of the _Densetsu no Sannin _in such a short amount of time.

Not wanting to show any sign of fear which would drastically lower his chances of getting into the snake clan, Naruto steeled himself and remembered the mentioning of him possibly joining the clan. Wanting to get as much information on how he could ensure that the chances of him joining the clan were non-existent as it would be a full gone conclusions that he was going to be able to sign the contract.

"Shakudo-sama, do you personally know anything else that I could to ensure that I am in the best position possible to gain entrance into renowned snake clan?" Naruto politely stated as he wanted to know whether or not he was close to getting in or whether there were other things that he needed to do to get into the clan.

While Naruto was asking this question, he was hoping that he was not being too nosy that he was seen as someone who was impatient. Thankfully for the female snake didn't see it that way and allowed Naruto the answer to that question.

Looking at Naruto and noting that he looked much better in his choice of clothing and noticed that the black and grey combination in clothing was a much better choice and one that her father would approve until they could get him fitted into some snake clan clothing and gear which would show the world that he was theirs in terms of summon clans.

Shakudo was absolutely confident in the fact that the person that was in front of her was going to become the second ever member in the history of the snake clan to sign the snake contract as Naruto's transformation over the past four months had been one that a person who met Naruto for the first time and heard stories about his previous self would not be able to believe that he had changed so much.

That was why she decided that she could tell Naruto that he was going to be getting inducted into the clan shortly. This did not mean though that she was going to let him get a head full of confidence. "If you put on a good showing during this round and make it to the final round which you will be showcasing off your skills to the whole world as everybody who is worth their salt as a shinobi will be wanting to know the results of the chunin exam to see who the standout shinobi of the future are… well we will have to train extensively to make sure that you fly the hebi banner proudly." Shakudo said to which Naruto got a massive grin as the only thing that was standing in the way of him getting the closest thing to a family was the getting another scroll, something which he had the upmost confidence in his abilities that he was able to achieve.

"Thank you Shakudo-oneesama" Naruto called out with obvious happiness radiating off of the boy as the blonde haired genin from the hidden leaf village jumped forward and wrapped as much of his arms as he could around the princess of the snake clan.

Shocked and touched that Naruto…kun was giving her this much emotion through the hug as she had certainly not expected it made her revaluate her opinion on the boy as she remembered that her father had told her that he was an orphan who had practically no forms of love in a familial sense throughout his whole childhood and was someone who clung to the bonds of family tightly made her feel sympathy for the boy.

Wrapping part of her body around Naruto, Shakudo gave a comforting hug to which the boy could not feel any happier at the moment and it was this that made him forget entirely about his two teammates getting attacked by one of the _Densetsu no Sannin._

"Well I believe that we should get going or otherwise you will not be able to complete your test as no doubt your teammates will need you after what Orochimaru does to them because he seems to have a specific interest in that Uchiha boy, no doubt I guess that it has to do with his major desire to learn all ninjutsu and the sharingan would help with that immensely." The princess of all snakes said to Naruto to which the blonde haired boy realised that he had forgotten all about his team.

Knowing that he couldn't do anything until Shakudo left the place or otherwise she would be forced to attack him with the intent to kill. Naruto hoped that whatever it was that the snake Sannin was doing to his team was something that they would be able to live through and get to the tower so that he could get into the final round of the chunin exams as that would allow him to be inducted into the snake clan, something that he really wanted to happen.

After the two saying goodbye to each other, Naruto heard a loud scream enter his eardrums and it was coming from somewhere fairly close to where he was and with the thought that it could have been Sakura, Naruto rushed towards where sound came from so that he could help his teammate who was in some form of distress.

It was then that Naruto saw someone that he hadn't seen in over 3 months but someone that he was very glad to see as it was truly his first friend that liked him for who he was. It was none other than the girl that gave him first proper kiss and he was delighted to see her as he thought that he would never get to see the great girl that was Karin-chan again.

Seeing that his friend was in trouble as she resting up against a tree where she was heavily frightened since there was a large bear that was growling at her indicating that he thought that she would make a good meal. This meant that Naruto had to take action to save her life and take action he did.

Just as he was preparing hits jutsu which would permanently make sure that Karin was safe, Naruto witnessed the bear growl so loudly that the girl got flown back and lost her glasses in the process indicating to Naruto that she couldn't see without them.

Just before the bear could deliver the final blow into the red headed girl, Naruto launched his **Fuuton: Renkudan no Jutsu (Wind Release: Drilling Air Bullet Jutsu) **at the large omnivore and hit it right in neck where the jutsu was strong enough in the cutting ability that when it the fur of the bear it went straight through the animal and managed to hit the external carotid artery which delivered blood to the brain and would make the bear incapacitated immediately and death would follow shortly after.

Dropping down to the ground to see if Karin-chan was alright, Naruto walked over to where she was trying to find her glasses and picked them up for her. Amused at the situation that Karin was in; Naruto spoke up to her. "Here, close your eyes, Karin-chan." Naruto said to the girl with red hair in front of him.

Trying to figure out whether the voice that was speaking to her was trustworthy or not, Karin decided to trust in the person who had an oddly familiar voice that she could get her vision back.

In the mind of the red haired girl from Kusagakure she could not have been happier with herself when she trusted a gut feeling that allowed her to succumb to the advice of shinobi in front of her. The reason because of this was because when Karin closed her eyes the shinobi in front of her put her glasses on for her along with playing with her hair for a bit, an action that she greatly enjoyed.

Opening her red eyes so that she could see who it was that she would have to thank for helping her out immensely, Karin locked onto the face of her rescuer and could not do anything but blush extremely red as she realised just who it was that had put her glasses on.

It was the same person that had taken her out on her very first date who also coincidentally the same person who she gave her first kiss to. It was none other than Naruto Uzumaki and there wasn't another person in the world that she would rather have saved her.

Completely confused by the emotions that she was feeling and knowing that she had to do some way of thanking Naruto for his heroic deed, the red haired girl jumped up into Naruto's chest and wrapped her legs around his waist whilst she initiated a kiss that showed just how much she thanked Naruto.

Caught off guard by the act, Naruto blushed bright red as unlike the first kiss that Naruto had shared with Karin was one that was awkward and weird for him, this one was different in the fact that Naruto and Karin had some sort of idea in what they liked when they kissed each other and that made the moment all the more memorable for the two as for them looking back on it as a married couple, they would say that it was arguably the best kiss that they had ever shared.

Running her hands through Naruto's golden blonde hair made the Kyubi's jinchuuriki weak at the knees and struggled to keep standing while bearing the weight of Karin as the sensations she was giving him were clouding his mind and making it harder to keep a conscious thought with all of the hormones running around inside of his body.

Making his way over to where the tree was so that he could lean against it and not fall over, Naruto rested his against the piece of nature so that he wouldn't embarrass himself and possibly injure Karin which was something that could ruin the mood and make him her not want to continue as he was loving what he was feeling.

Not really sure what to do in the situation as when he did it the first time, as that was mostly just him being an accomplice, not really knowing what the funny feelings he was experiencing. When Naruto went to the library after he had done that to learn all about being a shinobi and being a boy his age, Naruto learnt what he had done and could now tell what those sensations were and why he liked them so much.

Wanting to be a good person that he was trying to be like and make Karin feel the same feelings that he was feeling, Naruto, still holding Karin got off the tree and turned around and let her be the one that was resting against the tree.

Surprised by the movement made by Naruto, Karin squealed a little bit into his mouth which was something that Naruto registered as something that she liked very much. With this new feeling of confidence entering his body, Naruto by replying back to the kiss instead of just letting her have complete dominance in the event the two were partaking in.

**Lemon Warning**

Being bolder in what she was doing, Karin was getting closer and closer to doing something with a boy that she never thought that she would do until her respective partner was at least her boyfriend for two months as she held onto the belief that a female's virginity is their most precious gift that they could give to someone and that was no different.

To think that she was close to giving it to a boy she had only been on one date with and that she would be doing it in a forest full of carnivorous plants and poisonous animals with a giant bear close by was certainly the way she didn't expect to lose her virginity but since it was in the heat of the moment and hormones in both Naruto and Karin were at a high thanks to the bear making Karin's adrenaline high and Naruto's excitement running at a recent all-time high thanks to the information that he was going to become a member of the snake clan.

These all culminated in Naruto and Karin getting it on for their first of many times. Being bolder in the way that she went with Naruto because from what she hazily remembered from their first date, Naruto did not know much about anything and it was her turn to show Naruto the wonders of the female body.

The way how Karin did this was by licking on the bottom lip of Naruto and when Naruto finally realised that she wanted to do something that concerned opening his mouth, the blonde haired boy obliged and opened his mouth during the kiss, not sure what was going to happen next but if the kissing was anything to go by then it was sure to be good.

Indeed it was for the blonde haired boy. Despite the kiss in which the two used their tongues to make one another happy as well as themselves being one that was extremely awkward since neither of them had any clue whatsoever as to how to do things properly, it was one that the two enjoyed immensely.

Kind of remembering from his first time where he was raped by the friendly neighbourhood cougar that women liked it more when the male's hands were not idle, Naruto did what he did best which was learn through experience when he moved his hands from around her waist so that Karin was firmly up against the tree with Naruto's weight keeping her in place.

Where he put his hands was in a place that was the most vibrant of red. No, it was not her pubic hair as Naruto knew not to be bold or the exercise they were participating in could be stopped prematurely because Karin thought that Naruto only wanted her for sex.

No, Naruto put his hands into the vibrant red hair that was on top of her head which went down to the base of her neck. Having had the kiss going for enough time that the two needed to take a break and catch their breath, they did just that.

Opening her eyes when she lost contact, Karin looked into the depths of Naruto's oceanic blue eyes that made her wish that she was a Konoha ninja so that she could look into them more and more. Knowing that this could be the only time that she could do this with the person who had invaded her mind ever since their date, Karin made a brash decision that she would do it with the person that she liked the most apart from her father.

Despite knowing that it was probably wrong for him to do it even though they were both adults in the eyes of the law, Naruto just wanted to know the feeling the great feeling of sex with a girl his own age who was just as inexperienced at it as what he was. The fact that he was doing it with a girl like Karin who was his first friend that he felt that in the future he could confide his deepest secrets to made it all the more worthwhile for the blonde haired boy. What Naruto did not know was that after doing something like sex between friends made it awkward to talk to the other one without thinking of what they had just done.

Moving her hands from where they once were, Karin rested them on the zipper of Naruto's jumper and unzipped it so that she could gain access to Naruto's body.

Thanks to Naruto having made such an improvement in his diet and his exercise compared to where he was when he got a full medical check with Karin at the Kusagakure hospital where the red haired girl found out that Naruto was suffering from severe muscle degradation and a lack of weight thanks to his hyper fast metabolism which consumed the very small amount of food he ate really quickly.

All in all Naruto was very skinny, so much so that you could see his ribs, shoulder blades and practically every other bone in his body with ease to the point in looked like he had an injury of some sort. This meant that it was a severe turn of for all women who managed to capture a look at Naruto without his brightly coloured orange jumpsuit which was so big that it hid his lack of bulk, whether it be fat or muscle.

Now though that he had a better diet that was increasing the amount of calories that he was eating to an obscene amount combined with the amount of protein was coming in from the nutrient bars and protein shakes he had in the morning meant that his body had gone under a rapid change in the last two months.

Since the Kyubi made it so that Naruto had no unnecessary body fat, it meant that whatever muscle that Naruto put on actually looked a lot more than what it was since there was no fat that could the muscle could hide behind. This meant that the abdominals of Naruto had changed from seeable bones to fairly developed six pack that would only come from battle hardened chunin's.

The reason how Karin might know this was because since Naruto's arms were in her hair and it was feeling really good, Karin did not want him to remove them even for a second made her go straight for the goodies in her mind despite the clothing she had bought him with his money still on his body.

That wasn't much of a problem in making it hard for Karin to gain access to feeling Naruto's abs as despite planning for Naruto's growth in buying clothes that would allow him to grow into them, the amount of growing that Naruto had done recently was unfathomable to the red haired girl.

This meant that she could feel the muscles in Naruto's stomach much easier and could tell that his body was getting much better than what it used to be, much to her pleasure. Lifting up the red long sleeved shirt that matched her hair colour, Karin got to feeling Naruto's abdomen and oblique muscles, which for his age were very well defined.

Feeling bad that he was only receiving pleasure from Karin when he was not, Naruto sought out to make that mistake right by pressing his body harder onto hers so that he could use his arms to take off of his jacket and make it easier for Karin to do what she was doing.

Once that was done the blonde haired ninja's hands made their way onto the hem of Karin's brown unbuttoned shirt on either hip and started to massage his way up her body just like she was doing.

Making a noise that made it quite clear to Naruto that he was doing something right with his hands on her hips, stomach and sides, Naruto decided to be bolder in his actions with putting his hands in between the fishnet bodysuit that wearing and her brown unbuttoned top to get better access to her skin.

Loving the sensations that her body was going through the red haired glasses wearing girl wanted much more access to the top half of Naruto's body, placing her hands on the hem of Naruto's long sleeve shirt. Karin pulled it up indicating that she wanted to remove it from Naruto's personage.

Get the message the blonde boy did as he removed his hands from Karin's stomach and placed them on her shapely legs (for her age) and continued to massage the skin beneath him.

Taking the top half of Naruto's clothes off, Karin felt all of the muscles that made up Naruto's body and could not help but look in awe at the amount of training that Naruto must have done to get such a good body at a young age. All this was in her favour as when her hands and mouth went on Naruto's body; she loved every moment of it.

Massaging her legs, Naruto felt bold in what he was about to do next. Reading history books on how the human race evolved, Naruto found out that the arse that he was about to grab hold of was the first thing that women developed as a form of attracting the opposite sex.

This was why when his hands firmly gripped her but cheeks through the fabric of her black skirt and massaged her arse fairly roughly, something that the red haired girl liked very much. Despite liking the feeling of her arse in his hands, Naruto knew that he should be servicing Karin's upper body just like she was to him as it was causing him countless amounts of pleasure.

Moving his hands off of her arse which brought a moan of disapproval from Karin as she liked what she was feeling, Naruto placed his hands on the point where her unbuttoned polo shirt was and gently pulled it down her arms as to take it off. Feeling self-conscious at the fact that there were other girls from Kusa who had developed earlier in their development as a female and made her think that she was far smaller than other girls her age.

Knowing that Sakura liked to where clothing that showed no cleavage for the fact that she had no cleavage to show, Naruto guessed that Karin must be insecure about her breast size. Seeing that they were bigger than Sakura's since he had accidentally seen her without a top on when they were drying off from their water walking training, Naruto did his best to comfort and reassure Karin that she was normal; Naruto spoke up in a way that hopefully made Karin not mad.

"You don't need to worry about your breast size Karin-chan. You're bigger in that department then my teammate." Seeing the ruthless look on her face Naruto quickly spoke up trying to alleviate the anger and turn it back into a look of absolute lust. "I accidentally saw her after completing the water walking exercise, please don't hurt me." Naruto said with a bit of melodramatic acting to get on the good side of Karin.

Thankfully for the blonde haired genin from Konoha, this did happen as Karin, feeling more confident in herself thanks to the words of Naruto, Karin being bold dropped her top to the ground completely whilst still having her weight supported by Naruto leaning into the tree with her in between the two with her legs wrapped around a waist and her arms wrapped around Naruto's neck and brought her lips onto his and resulting in an action that the two were slowly getting better and better at.

Wanting to show Karin that her boobs were big in his eyes, Naruto latched one hand onto her right breast while the other hand was on her left one all the while keeping his lips onto Karin's.

Having had enough of feeling Naruto's abs and his other upper body muscles, Karin knowing what was eventually going to come, put her hands down his pants although not down his underwear and grabbed onto his erection. Grunting as a sign of pleasure into the mouth of Karin, Naruto could not think it could get any better then what was happening, luckily for the blonde haired boy, he was wrong.

Caressing what in time she would dub as the 'anaconda' Karin felt that not only was Naruto's manhood a little bit larger than what she had seen from the other men she had had to test recently, but it was also wider which from the medical books that she had read meant that it would give her much more pleasure.

Remembering what the cougar wanted in terms of feeling pleasure when the innocent Naruto went to do his mission, Naruto moved his mouth to where one of the nipples were and latched his mouth onto Karin's fishnet covered boob with the nipple poking out of it.

Screaming in pleasure, Karin realised that she had to do something to cover up the noises coming from her mouth as it would make people come and interrupt them during something special happening. They how she did this was dropping her legs from Naruto' waist she turned the tables in placing his body back up against the wall and dropped down onto her knees preparing herself to try something that she had never tried before. That was oral sex.

Pulling down Naruto's pants along with his underwear and watched how Naruto's manhood came springing out of the fabric thanks to the fact that his hormones were controlling his erection and making it very hard.

Looking at the piece of flesh sitting horizontally in front of her, Karin was shocked, from the medical dictionaries that she had read about human anatomy, males around 3.5inches while the one that she was staring at was on the upper part of five inches and she was looking at it with a little bit of nervousness since she thought that it would be hard to fit in. Remembering that lubrication was the best way to get prepared, Karin got down to doing she had heard that other couples found very pleasurable.

Naruto for his part wasn't really sure what was going on as when he did it his first time, it was just straight sex and no foreplay, feeling the sensations going through his body though made Naruto know that he definitely liked doing foreplay than just straight out sex as it gave him more enjoyment.

When he saw the look that was in Karin-chan's eyes when she looked at his penis, he would not lie and say that it didn't make him nervous and insecure because he didn't know what the thoughts were going in the red haired girl's head.

When Karin put her hand around it and gave a tentative pump and heard the hiss like noise that Naruto gave out indicating that he liked what she was doing, it gave the girl confidence to push on doing what she was planning on doing.

Ploughing on ahead, Karin put as much of Naruto's penis into her mouth and started bobbing up and down on the phallus with her mouth coating Naruto's penis with her saliva which made the experience all the more enjoyable for both parts.

Knowing that men preferred it when there was more variety instead of just keeping to the same routine motion, Karin moved her tongue so that she could lick the head of the penis that was in her mouth.

And that was how it went for the next five minutes with Karin alternating between techniques that she was learning on the fly by the moaning, groaning and hissing that was coming out of the mouth of the boy who was putty in her hands.

By the time that the sixth minute had gone, the pressure that was trying to hold back into his penis coming to the point where he couldn't hold onto it any longer, Naruto felt that he should warn Karin about what was to come. "Ugh, Karin-chan, I can't hold on much longer ugh." Naruto rasped out as what was going on was very pleasurable and not something that even the Kyubi could stall any longer with his impressive abilities.

Karin realising what Naruto was talking about nodded mentally to herself and made the decision to see what seamen tasted like as the teenage magazines she had read stated that it was supposed to be a bit bitter and salty.

With Naruto being jacked up on hormones it meant that his release was something that shot out like a garden hose and the ropes of Naruto's semen shot out of the head and straight into the cavern of Karin's mouth.

Since Naruto did not eat anything other than the foods and drinks that Karin had put on his diet, it meant that when Karin tried to discern the taste of Naruto's baby batter and found out that it was very bland and she didn't know why people said that it tasted terrible.

When the loss of blood pressure that came from the releasing of his orgasm, Naruto almost dropped to the ground as he had jelly legs and it was only thanks to the tree that he managed to keep his balance. The same could be said as she almost fell backwards thanks to the pressure of Naruto's release as the amount coming out of Naruto was very large and it was coming very quickly.

As Karin took Naruto-kun's slowly deflating penis out of her mouth, there was one last shot that Naruto grunted out which hit her in her glasses and dribbled down to her lips in which she licked off, much to the slowly regaining conscience Naruto who definitely liked the sight of what had just happened.

Being the kind gentleman he was, Naruto made up his mind that he had to repay all of the pleasure that Karin-chan had given him, Naruto made his mind up on how that was going to go down.

Picking up Karin via her legs, Naruto liked the noise of contentment that his future girlfriend made and did his best to keep the noises coming from her although he knew that people could hear him, Naruto did his best to keep her pleasured yet quiet.

Laying her down on the ground with him over the top of her body with his hands resting on her black skirt covered hips. "Karin-chan, is it alright if I make you feel as good as what you did for me?" Naruto questioned to the girl who, beneath him shyly nodded as she was getting a few nerves with going through with what was happening.

Lifting up the skirt of that the red eyed girl was wearing as it would at least allow some sort of decency for the girl if someone ever came to where they were and saw what they were doing and looked at the dampening red hipster panties that the glasses wearing girl was wearing.

Pulling down the underwear along with the fishnet stockings that made up her full body suit of the stuff that Karin was wearing, Naruto got to see that Karin did not dye her hair as she was a natural red haired girl since her pubes were the same colour as the hair on her head. It also had the same spiky yet straight look.

Despite having absolutely no idea on how to pleasure a woman as he had never read anything about it since he thought that no one would want to do it with the demon container any time soon. This was something that did not stop the blonde haired boy as he put on a mask of confidence on his face and just hoped for the best that the moans of the red haired girl beneath him would guide him in the right direction.

Taking his tongue on a tour of the body beneath him, Naruto gave an experimental lick at the top of Karin's private parts and found out that Karin like it a lot when he accidentally licked the little nub at the top of her entrance. Judging by the moans coming from Karin, it meant that she liked it and guessing that he should continue there.

2 minutes passed with Naruto focusing his attention solely on the pea sized nub of flesh that brought pleasure to the red haired girl. Deciding to be a bit bolder in trying to find out where else would bring satisfaction to Karin-chan. This curiosity made Naruto remove his tongue from Karin's clitoris and moved his tongue to the hole where his genatalia would enter.

Using the muscle in his mouth Naruto ventured into the caverns of her opening and thrusted his tongue in one firm motion that while powerful was not enough so that it burst the hymen of Karin as she gasped at the new sensation she was feeling between her legs.

Moving his tongue around in Karin's vagina was something that Naruto liked very much. This was also a feeling that was reciprocated by the red haired girl as she voiced her approval via a moan.

3 minutes later and Naruto's ever increasing skill with his tongue was getting to the point in which Karin felt a feeling coming from her lower regions that was akin to peeing and thinking that it was a regular orgasm that was coming as she had not done it with herself before, Karin let loose a primal scream as the blonde haired boy with his mouth in her nether regions made her gush out her orgasm.

When Karin let loose a scream that was larger than any of the other previous noises that she had made, Naruto was not sure what was going to happen next but he certainly liked it when the girl released a large amount of some strange fluid that tasted quite sweet when it hit his lips.

Since Karin had swallowed his semen when he ejaculated, he felt that it was only right for him to do the same to her; this was something that Naruto did not have a problem with as he liked the taste of the vaginal fluid quite a lot.

Getting his head out of Karin's crotch Naruto looked up to see the grinning like a Cheshire cat face of the glasses wearing girl who was slowly gaining coherent thought as the land of the living was slowly coming back to her.

Once Karin, was able to make good decisions, she spoke to Naruto as she remembered that he did not know much since he was an orphan from their last date. "Naruto-kun, before we get to the main part, if you don't already know, girls have something that's called a hymen that breaks when a penis is inserted for the first time and it is supposed to hurt when it breaks so can you please be gentle when you put it in okay?" Karin hesitantly questioned because she knew that Naruto was quite large in comparison to the other male genitalia she had seen and red about through medical journals.

Nodding in thanks for that piece of information, Naruto gave Karin a heartfelt kiss before aligning himself with Karin's vagina and slowly pushed into the darkness. Coming to a road block since he felt as if there was some sort of barricade that was preventing him from going on any further Naruto realised that this was the hymen that Karin was talking about.

Looking up into the eyes of the girl beneath him for reassurance that this was what she wanted to do, Karin nodded with a content smile on her face as she was getting used to having Naruto filling up her insides. With one final push as he struggled to keep in his semen as he was liking the experience very much and was having a hard time keeping himself from exploding inside of her as her tight walls did not give Naruto an easy time.

Whilst Naruto was struggling to keep himself from releasing into the vagina of Karin, the red haired girl was doing her best not show any signs of being weak from the pain that she was feeling in her abdomen which was coming in the form of a stinging sensation.

With Karin not moving because of the pain that she was in thanks to breaking her hymen with Naruto's 'anaconda', Naruto was having an easier time not releasing himself into Karin since there was no friction. Once she had finally gotten over the pain that she was feeling, Karin spoke up to Naruto now that she was ready to experience sexual pleasure for the first time. "Naruto-kun, when you get to the point where you can't hold out any longer you have to release outside of me because I don't want to become pregnant." Karin stated and when she saw that Naruto nodded, she gave an experimental jerk of the hips to initiate the motion that the two would be actively doing.

When Naruto found out that it was okay to start as he felt the sensations coming from Karin when she thrusted her lower body pushing his penis further into her vagina, he pushed in just as fast at a continuous pace. Both Naruto and Karin were feeling the effects of what they were doing and the two of them loved it a lot, so much so that it made Karin started talking in a mode that you would never catch her using outside of the sexual domain.

That was using her newfound proficiency in the language of profanity when Naruto got going. "Come on Naruto-kun, fuck me harder and faster, fuck my virgin pussy real hard. Come on, shove your giant penis into my pussy!" Karin shouted out not even wondering where all of the profound language came from as long as Naruto did what she asked for.

Not sure how to verbally respond to that, Naruto just replied via an increase in his speed and the power of his thrusts into the red haired girl as to make the experience more enjoyable for the both of them.

5 minutes later with time during the sex going as if it was the speed of light as the experience was just so fun for the two of them that they didn't have a care in the world as the two engaged in the primal act. It was then that it was time for Karin to release her orgasm, one that was bigger than the previous one that she had when Naruto was eating her out.

"It's coming Naruto-kun, ARGH!" Karin shouted as she let out a guttural scream to signify that she was contracting her lower vaginal muscles when she released her fluid that coated Naruto's penis.

With Naruto being close himself combined with the fact that the tightening muscles of Karin that made him an even tighter fit was enough to make Naruto go over the edge and signify that he was releasing his semen. Luckily Naruto had the presence of mind to make sure to ejaculate outside of the glasses wearing girl's body as to not make her pregnant.

Feeling the sensation of not having Naruto inside of her made Karin realise just how good sex was. Looking over at her blonde haired friend she saw that despite Naruto having ejaculated enough to fill a large shot glass, he was still hard as a rock which she put down to having massive amounts of hormones running around inside of his body.

Seeing that Naruto was still in a place of bother and she wanted to feel more of the sensations that she was previously feeling made Karin have a rather predatory grin on her face as she made her way over to Naruto, this time tackling him to the ground with her on top. "Ready for round two Naruto-kun?"

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><p><strong>Author's Notes:<strong>

**In case you didn't notice, what I was trying to portray with the lemon was that it was a heat of the moment thing and not because Karin is easy, I hope we got that clear. Sorry about the ending of the chapter but I don't particularly like writing lemons as it is distracting having a boner with all of the naughty thoughts inside my head.**

**Do any of you know why I am getting duplicate emails of your reviews a few days later from when you review?**

**I have decided that any chapter that I have a character improve in abilities, I will do the stat counter at the bottom of each chapter.**

**Sorry for using plot-no-jutsu concerning no one finding them during their escapade but I wasn't going to let anything ruin the moment.**

**Just like I have done with all of the parts in this story so far, I am trying to be as unique as possible and that will be no different with the upcoming storyline of cannon.**


	14. And that heaven is overrated

**I recently got a full time Job in which I start work on the 16****th**** so from that day forward, my updates will come in a much less frequent time frame, sorry if this annoys people but nothing is going to change me into writing more frequently.**

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><p>After having done it three more times with Karin, who had a peaceful look on her face since she had fallen asleep from the final orgasm, Naruto had to put her clothes on, this was especially hard for the blonde haired boy as he had no idea on how to put a bra on and clasp it so that it wouldn't fall over.<p>

Once Naruto had gotten into all of her clothes, Naruto created roughly 60 shadow clones with the first 15 going off to find some materials to build a proper campsite that was well laid with traps so that no one would be able to get the drop on Karin and he. It helped that all of the indirect training that Naruto did for his pranks also worked extremely well in the art of trap making.

The other 45 clones were to scout the area in the hopes of looking for his teammates in which he would see what kind of condition the two were in so that he could help them by setting up a more secure defence system for them because he knew that out of the three of them, trap making was the art that Naruto was the most proficient in.

When the clone where Sakura and Sasuke were, Naruto sent out a bunch more clones to the area to better prepare them for the night when other genin wanting to become chunin would be attacking them. Seeing the rather pathetic traps that had been made in the area made Naruto realise that it was Sakura who did the trap making since Sasuke was at least passable in his books when it came to the art.

Once Naruto had done that which took a good hour since there was hardly any light in the sky when he set up camp, Naruto, tired from all of the sex that he and Karin had done recently, went to sleep hoping that he would wake up soon as he wanted to talk to Karin before they eventually parted ways since he knew that he would have to back with his team

**The next morning**

Waking up, Karin felt a weird sensation coming from her lower lips and tried to figure out what had caused to feel the pleasure. It was then that she realised that she had just given out her virginity to a guy that she had only met twice and been on a date with once.

Ashamed and angry at herself because she prided herself on being more independent and not cheap like all of the other girls that went to the shinobi school for Kusa who were easy when it came to giving away their most prized possession, Karin did not want to be like all of those other girls who teased her for being a nerd and having no friends.

It was then that the red haired girl felt two appendages coming from the boy that she had just fucked that were securely wrapped around her arms. This brought out an emotion of happiness and comfort in Karin that she had not felt since the days of when she was younger and curled up into a ball and slept in the same bed with her dad where he would say that he would protect her from anything and everything.

That was a thought that haunted the red haired girl the moment that it entered her head. What would her father think when eventually finds out that his daughter despite being a kunoichi of the hidden grass gave out her virginity to some guy that she didn't even know properly? That was a question that the kunoichi did not want to know the answer to.

Thinking about the person who she had just done the naughty with, Karin was amazed at how much Naruto-kun had grown over the past few months from that scrawny malnourished boy into someone that she thought was a complete hottie and totally had a body that was fuckable…pun intended.

It was more than that though as the friendship between the two was more than just a physical one for the two genin from different villages as for Karin, Naruto was the first friend she had ever made since she was the target of all the bullying that was done by the popular girls at the ninja school.

She was not the only one who made their first friend that day as she knew from what Naruto said on their date that she was the first person that he could call a friend as the others were just acquaintances but weren't people that Naruto felt comfortable to confide in and in all their time, they never got together outside of the academy, they never did an activity outside of any kind.

Liking the feeling of being in the embrace of Naruto, Karin so badly wished that she and Naruto could become a couple so that they would be able to have moments like these more often as she liked them, a lot. It was then that Karin felt the subconsciously moving hand of Naruto which was moving around on her stomach and needing her body, much to her pleasure.

Liking the feeling so much that she didn't even bother to get up, Karin waited in the embrace with Naruto until the blonde haired boy woke up and they could have a proper talk about how life was going before they eventually went their separate ways.

Waking up, Naruto certainly did not expect to have the his arms wrapped around a hot girl which allowed him rub his hands over her stomach but then Naruto remembered what he was doing the night before which made him blush like the colour of Karin's hair and it made him rubbing her stomach seem like an innocent gesture compared to last night.

Realising that while the traps that he had set up for Sakura and Sasuke were very good, he didn't have a chance to tell either of them that he put traps around the area which would potentially kill the enemy as well as his two teammates, Naruto knew that he had to get up and get to his two teammates quickly as Sasuke didn't look as if he was voluntarily sleeping that night.

Sensing by the breathing patterns of Karin that the girl was awake, Naruto pulled Karin's hair back around her ear so that he could give a generous kiss on her jawline to which Karin moaned and repositioned her body around so that she could respond to the kiss.

Not even the soreness in her lower lips would be able to prevent Karin from wanting a repeat performance from last night as she knew that this would be the last time that she ever saw Naruto again and if she did actually see him, she knew that it would be a long time away and such a nice guy like him would be probably with another girl by then.

**Half an hour later**

After readjusting both of their clothes with a grin on each of their faces, Naruto and Karin sat down with the red haired girl in Naruto's lap as she leaned into his chest as the two of them both knew that this would probably be the last time they would ever see each other again and if they did it would be far too long in between.

"Karin-chan, how has life been for you in Kusagakure? How much better of a doctor and medical ninja have you gotten since we last got together?" Naruto questioned as he knew from what they had talked about on their first date that Karin loved the medical profession and the joy of saving lives as her mother had died young and didn't want anyone to suffer what she went through without a mum.

Not to mention that Karin was also very proud of her accomplishments as a medical ninja and was proud of the fact that she had learnt the **Ijutsu: Shosen no Jutsu (Healing Arts: Mystical Palm Jutsu) **at such an early stage in her career as a shinobi.

"Well Naruto-kun, when we first met, I had only barely learnt the **Ijutsu: Shosen no Jutsu (Healing Arts: Mystical Palm Jutsu) **in which I could get the chakra working and put bones into the right places, but now I am good with it that I can actually start the bone realignment and re-combining the bones back together, oh and I can also do the same thing if someone tears a muscle in their arm or leg." The red haired girl said with obvious pride in her voice as she wanted Naruto-kun to know that she took her training as a doctor just as seriously as what he did when it came to his training as a ninja.

Before Naruto could offer some congratulations on Karin-chan's improvement, she cut him off by going on again about how she had gotten better. "Oh and I almost forgot! I also found out that I am what is called a sensor shinobi so I am in the process of developing a jutsu based on that. At the moment I can sense where a chakra signature is within a 5km radius if I really try hard." Karin stated as she was proud of this ability as she knew that hardly any people in the shinobi continent were blessed as born sensor shinobi.

What the red haired girl did not say though was that the only person in Kusa that knew that she had this ability was her father as she got enough pressure from the higher ups to be a better medic nin since there was a high demand for them in the world and Kusa wanted to get the most out of her skills for her age in the department of healing people through chakra.

If they found out that she was also a sensor shinobi, well then it would make them apply way too much pressure on her and that was something that she did not want to handle. Naruto for his part was beyond impressed as he knew that Karin-chan must have had insane chakra control to do that and he knew that that was an ability that he would never have.

"Congratulations Karin-chan, I know you must have worked hard on the medical jutsu as I know it not only takes a lot of knowledge but a horrendous amount of chakra control to even get the basics of that jutsu down. Not to mention that the sensor part is something that I know no matter how much training I put in to it, that is a department that you will always beat me in." Naruto said with pride as it was his best friend that he was talking about.

Blushing at the praise that Naruto had just given her, the red haired girl's face had just nearly turned into a colour that matched her hair. Managing to stammer out her question as she wanted to know how much the blonde haired boy that was securely holding her around the waist had improved in his shinobi skills since she knew that he had drastically improved from where he was when he graduated as a shinobi compared to when he met her for the first time.

"So Naruto-kun, how has your training paid off from when we went on our date?" Karin asked as she wondered just how good Naruto was now, having a rough estimate inside of her mind, Karin guessed that her Naruto-kun would be able to get chunin promotion his first time around.

"Well I followed your diet plan and did asked Kakashi-sensei for an increase in physical training so my body has been the part that has gone under the most dramatic change from the skin and bones to nothing but muscle as I am sure that you can personally attest to." The blonde haired boy said with a bit of a smirk on his face as he remembered Karin-chan's roaming her hands along his body quite a lot during their romps of hormone fuelled passion.

Indeed Karin did know this as she marvelled at how toned Naruto's body was because she knew that while it was easy to put on muscle quickly, toning a body by losing more weight compared to the amount of food you ate was hard especially considering that Naruto ate a ton of food.

"I also have gotten much better in my Fuuton ninjutsu as you can see from the bear over there," Naruto stated as he pointed over to the large mammal that was de composing whilst still fresh enough that he could get some meat from the carcass and heat it up with a fire and both he and Karin could eat it for breakfast.

While she was disgusted with the sight of the dead animal near her, she still saw the positive in the fact that if that was an enemy, they would be no longer a threat to her or Naruto. Proud of the fact that her Naruto-kun was such a good ninja and would only drastically improve in the future. As these thoughts were going through her mind, the red haired girl never realised that she was calling the blonde haired boy her Naruto-kun emphasizing that she was staking her claim on him.

Sighing as he knew that he had to get back to his teammates, despite the fact that he didn't particularly like them; Naruto knew that he had to meet up with them early in the morning if he wanted to have a chance to join the snake clan.

Loosening his hold around Karin's waist, an action that didn't go unnoticed by the red haired girl as she knew that they had to part ways soon because Naruto had to get back to his team. Being the gentleman that he was, Naruto went over to the carcass and pulled out a kunai and practised his wind manipulation to get more proficient at it whilst he cut up the bear to prepare it for a still dark breakfast.

Thankfully since it was still in the colder parts of spring before it got hotter as the place prepared for the summer heat and the fact that Naruto had killed it when it was getting dark which meant that the bacteria would wait until the morning when it was warmer to spoil the meat.

This meant that while the red meat was far from perfect in terms of being safe to consume, it did mean that it would good enough that it wouldn't make either him or Karin sick when they ate it.

Not one to take what Naruto was doing for the two of them for granted, the glasses wearing girl went out into the forest to pick up some kindling to start a fire for breakfast. When that was done, a quick use of a an academy survival jutsu that lighted fire's through the use of chakra, Karin had gotten the fire going ready for the bear steaks that Naruto was just about ready to put on.

And then ten minutes or so that it took for Naruto's nose to discern that the food tasted good was up. During this time Naruto and Karin talked about how their life was going at the moment and their stories' on what the missions they were undertaking were like.

When it was Karin's turn to talk about how she was getting more experience as a shinobi, her answer was one that made a protective mode inside of Naruto come out in full force, despite not knowing why he was so adamant in his dislike of the way that the Kusagakure Jonin commander handled things. This was because of the fact that since Karin did not have the physical requirements and mental conditioning to become a genin and the only reason she got promoted was because she was a medic nin in training and she had to become a genin to get her licence as a medical ninja.

The fact that she had never been on a mission before she got sent in here was something that Naruto did not like for one bit. The only reason why she was in the event was to gain the rank of chunin so that the village could get more prestige from having one of its kunoichi's in the final round of the tournament to garner more missions from outlying lands rather than having to rely always on their daimyo for funding.

Not even considering into the fact that Karin, nor the teammates that she had been assigned had ever gone on a mission before, it made for disaster. The thing in the blonde haired boy's mind that made the situation worse was the fact that Karin had not done one bit of teamwork training with her team.

All this in conclusion led to a recipe for disaster that Karin was lucky to survive. The same thing could not be said about her two other teammates as they had kicked the bucket and were no longer among the living.

Since there were two competing boys who had large egos on the team, it meant that when they reached a decision, they were stubborn in wanting to have the team to choose their ideals. When this happened, the two stubborn individuals went their own way leaving the glasses wearing Karin all by her lonesome. Thankfully for the red haired girl's sake, she was a sensor type ninja which allowed her to evade all of the people inside the forest.

Despite the bear stakes not being the best food she had had in her life, they were still good enough so that she could eat it and enjoy it considering that a lot of other people in the forest of death would be eating things that thy did not want to while she was having an unique steak.

Once that was done and the two had finished eating, they both knew that it was time for the duo to part ways and do their own separate thing. "Sorry Karin-chan but you and I both know that we have to separate as you aren't allowed into the tower since you don't have a teammate and a scroll and since I have to go and save my teammates and hopefully pass the exam, we unfortunately have to part ways." The blonde haired boy dejectedly stated as he wanted to spend more time with Karin since he knew that if he did see the glasses wearing girl again, it would be far too long between meetings.

Karin knew this as well and hoped that she could somehow meet up with Naruto again since he was her first real friend. This was a sentiment shared by Naruto as well as he hated knowing that he could not change the distance between he and the girl who was slowly but surely holding his heart securely in her hand.

Walking over to the blonde haired boy, Karin wrapped her arms around Naruto as if it was the first toy an orphan got in their life and turned him around so that she could look deeply into his eyes. "I'll miss you Naruto-kun, I wish that either you were a Kusagakure ninja or that I was a ninja from Konoha, then we could become boyfriend and girlfriend because I would really like thThe red haired girl said as she held onto Naruto for what could possibly be the last time.

Naruto himself was shocked because as the Kyubi jinchuuriki, he had thought that having a relationship would have to take a back seat but hearing about how Karin would have wanted to go out with him gave him the confidence that maybe one day he could have his own family.

With a small but irreversible and immobile smile on his face that he hoped was permanent when he was in the company of Karin-chan, Naruto spoke up conveying his feelings to her as well. "I'm sorry Karin-chan that I don't know the right way to convey my feelings for you towards you apart from doing the naughty which we have already done." This statement was enough to make the face of Karin go as red as her hair colour.

"But I want you to know that I truly wished that we could be together on a more permanent basis as I would love to have the honour of being a boyfriend to such a wonderful girl if you would have me." Naruto said as he stared into the vibrant red eyes of the girl in his embrace who just smiled so much that her jaws would hurt after extended periods of time.

Looking down at the happy face in front of him, Naruto placed his lips gently on top of hers and allowed the two to have their final kiss for what they thought would be a long time. This meant that all of the emotions that the two had for each other were conveyed between the lips. Since the two had been kissing all the time from last night, it meant that the two were profusely better than what their first attempt was like, sloppy and not that great.

After the two minutes of just holding their lips on one another's Naruto and Karin slowly parted ways so that they could gather their breath and before they eventually had to part ways, even if both of them didn't want to do that.

Softly, Naruto spoke up as the two parted ways. "Goodbye Karin-chan, I wish you have a happy life wherever you are and whatever you're doing." What Naruto didn't know was that the exact same words were being spoken about him coming from the lips of the glasses wearing girl who was going in the opposite direction.

**Time skip**

Using the memory that his clones had provided for him the night before which indicated where Sakura and Sasuke were staying, along with where all of the traps that he had set up were, Naruto made his way past all of the traps and got to where both of his teammates were sleeping.

Seeing that while Sasuke looked to be in a position and having sweat run down his forehead, it meant that he didn't have a choice in whether or not if he slept. The same could not be said for Sakura though as Naruto had guessed that she had tried to stay up but fell asleep during the middle of the night as she hadn't done many night shifts before.

Knowing that Sakura was bitchy in the mornings if she didn't get much sleep, the blonde haired boy carefully woke her up and waited for the eventual torture of his ears. Slowly waking up, Sakura fretted about the fact that she fell asleep when she was supposed to look after her Sasuke-kun. It was only until quite a bit later that she realised that she didn't wake up on her own merit when actually someone else woke her up.

Seeing that the person who woke her up was her estranged teammate who, when they needed him the most didn't show up when Sasuke-kun fought the weird guy named Orochimaru. Just before the girl was about to angrily shout at Naruto for abandoning the team and talk about the motto that Kakashi-sensei had instilled into the team about people who betray their comrades are worse than scum Naruto quickly placed her hand over Sakura's mouth and ordered her to speak quietly as he didn't want her to wake anybody up or anyone around them to know of their position.

Eventually, when Sakura got her voice under control, she hissed as loud as she could whilst not waking any one up or alerting people of her position. "Where the hell were you Naruto? When we needed you the most, you didn't show up. The main thing that Kakashi-sensei taught us was that "those who abandon the mission are scum but those that abandon their comrades are worse than scum""? Sakura paraphrased to her blonde haired teammate who visibly flinched since he knew that it was true and what made it worse was that he had been getting closer to his sensei ever since he asked him for more training.

To betray the teachings of his sensei who he was starting to look up to for appraisal since the man was the closest thing that Naruto had to a role model and father figure in his life; this meant that the words of Sakura truly hit home for the blonde haired boy.

Hoping that his counterargument as to why he was not with his two other teammates when they needed him fighting off a S-ranked criminal of the hidden leaf village, Naruto replied telling Sakura what he went through. Hoping that the use of the –chan suffix would help him not have to get questioned by Sakura.

"Sorry Sakura-chan, but when I got blown away, I got knocked out for who knows how long and then after that, I awoke to the sight of being dinner for a giant snake that was about to eat me in one bite. After that was done I got unlucky where I became dinner for another animal, this time it was a bear the size of a house which wanted to eat me.

Finally after that was killed, it was night time and I wanted to prepare myself as best as I could for this morning and be prepared to do both yours and Sasuke's share of the work. Sorry but I did add quite a few traps into the one that you made to make you safer at night, is that good enough to get in your good books." Naruto said to the pink haired girl in front of him.

Said pink haired girl sighed and nodded to Naruto that she accepted his apology and that he would have to stay guard so she could go back to sleep and get some extra rest since she hadn't slept properly.

**Time skip**

Standing outside the place that Sakura, Naruto and Sasuke were at, there were three ninjas from the land of rice patties or as it was more commonly known ever since Orochimaru took over the place, the land of sound, these ninjas had a mission to complete directly from their Kage and if they didn't complete the mission, well they shuddered as they knew how bad he could really be.

With a little plan sorted out, Kin, the only female on the team of sound based ninjutsu users placed an exploding tag on a squirrel and sent it over to where the blonde haired boy was as they guessed that since they were Konoha genin, that something easy like that would be able to complete the mission without much effort.

This was not the case however since Naruto saw that there was an explosive seal stuck onto the back of the squirrel and threw a kunai at the animal to get it frightened enough to run away. Lifting his head from where the small animal was, Naruto spotted three ninjas sitting on a combination of rocks and a tree branch looking at him with the intent to kill.

Knowing that Sakura would only be a liability being awake since she did not take her shinobi training seriously and the fact that Sasuke was in a forced sleep which meant that he couldn't wake him up unless he wanted any severe damage to happen to his teammate which would make him just as much of a liability as Sakura, Naruto knew that he had to do this all by himself.

Thankfully, the son of the Yondaime Hokage was an optimistic person by nature when it came to shinobi battles and despite the fact that the odds did not look good, Naruto was a battler thanks to his upbringing and would not give up until his nervous system was completely destroyed rendering all forms of conscious movement mute.

It was then that the voice of the tank top wearing female spoke up. "Wake up Sasuke-kun, we want to kill him." Kin stated as forcefully as she could to Naruto who just looked disinterested as a part of his ploy to get them to be over confident in the fact that they would come closer to him in which he could activate his traps.

Wanting to get as much information out of the people who were about to try and kill him so that he could use it against them. "What is the weird mark that Orochimaru placed on Sasuke's neck?" Naruto questioned to the three sound ninja.

Said three sound ninja looked shocked that the kid in front of them new who their master was and was not afraid to say his name considering that from what they had heard, their master's name was taboo in the village hidden in the leaves.

Regaining their composure, it was the trigger happy Zaku that spoke up next. "Hearing that, it means that we can't let you go and will have to kill not only Sasuke but you and the chick over their next to him." The boy spoke with a confident air surrounding him.

Before anything could go ahead though, the voice of the leader of team sound stopped the black haired boy from making a mistake. This action alone made Naruto know that the boy talking now was the leader of the group as even the hot head black haired boy and the calmer girl were taking in his words as if they were orders even if they weren't.

"Wait Zaku, stop right there." Dosu said before any serious damage could be done to the black eyed boy as he noticed that there was something wrong with the area in front of them, it looked as if it was specifically made for a trap.

"Huh, why?" The now curious genin from the hidden sound village questioned wondering what was so important that he wasn't able to battle the blonde haired boy.

"You're not very good" Dosu commented as he picked up a rock from the ground and tossed it up and down in his hand as he spoke to Naruto. "A recently overturned stone that's coloured different; grass doesn't grow here. A booby trap is pointless unless it goes unnoticed." Dosu lectured to Naruto who pretended to look shocked although they did not know something that he did.

That was the fact that that was the trap that they had noticed was the one made by Sakura which wasn't that great at all in the mind of Naruto who had massive amounts of experience in the art thanks to his pranks around the village.

Not knowing what was going in the mind of Naruto, it was Zaku who spoke up getting the attention of everyone conscious in the clearing. "Pfft, so that kunai was to not allow the squirrel to trigger the trap." The boy mused to himself although everyone could hear him.

The next person to speak up was Dosu as he wanted to get the battle over and done with so that he could get to the tower. "Since we have no need for them all, let's kill the three of them." Dosu commanded to which both Zaku and Kin nodded dutifully and the three ninjas from the hidden sound village jumped from their positions and attacked Naruto with the intent to kill.

What the three sound ninjas did not expect was for Naruto to cut the cord on Sakura's trap and release the giant log that she had prepared the night before. The trick was on Naruto though as he certainly did not expect for the way that the trio got around the trap.

The blonde haired boy thought that they would use the tree climbing exercise to stick to the log and jump off of it and use where they landed in which he would activate the traps that he had laid out.

This did not go according to plan though as when Dosu placed his hand on the wooden log that was substantial in size, he used his melody gauntlet device on his arm to generate sound waves that blew up the log into kindling and saw dust allowing he, Kin and Zaku to attack Naruto with ease.

The son of the Yondaime Hokage was in a state of slight panic as he didn't know how to both defend his teammates and take out the enemies since they were coming down a bit too fast for him to get off one of his jutsu's.

Seeing the look on Naruto's face, Dosu commented as he hated how kids from the leaf village got everything for free. "Frankly speaking, you have no talent. People like you have to work harder, a weakling like you shouldn't mess with guys like us." Dosu stated to Naruto who just had a smirk on his face as he noticed something that they didn't.

That something was wearing a green spandex suit and yelled out the name of his technique. **"Goken: Konoha Senpu! (Strong Fist: Leaf Whirlwind!)"** The boy in green clothing with gel slicked hair called out as he launched his attack at team sound.

Since this was someone on the same team as his beloved Sakura-chan, in the mind of the genin, the thought process was simple enough, which was that if he helped her teammate, he would get in her good books and possibly be able to take her out on a date.

What the two Konoha ninjas didn't know was that Sakura had woken up when Lee shouted his attack. Though since she knew that Sasuke was in a lot of trouble after the previous attack by Orochimaru, it meant that she stayed right by his side to defend him when she should have been with Naruto and Lee.

It was then that Naruto took over since he had regained his focus and spoke to Lee. "I am having the middle person as he is the leader and this is our fight, you are welcome to take the other to if you want." Naruto ordered to Lee.

Despite wanting to protest, Lee knew that this was a team 7 battle. What Lee didn't like was the fact that he had tried to look cool and then in a second with Naruto saying what he did, all of his hard work went down the drain as he was taking orders from a fresh genin.

Knowing that the leader used sound based attacks, Naruto guessed that all three of them used sound as their medium for attacking. With this in mind, Naruto used the best attack he knew as it would not only spread them out but also, if it hit any of them it would cut them severely, Naruto decided to launch a jutsu at the three sound ninjas.

That was until he found out by a few rustling bushes that there were some people spying on him and team sound which Naruto guessed was to pick up the scraps of the battle. Calling the name of his jutsu out, Naruto did three hand seals, used the new skills in cutting with wind and added it too his attack and blew out a ball of condensed and compressed air right at the bushes.

"**Fuuton: Renkudan! (Wind Release: Drilling Air Bullet Jutsu!"** Naruto called out with emphasis in which the bullet went flying towards the trees. For the second generation of the Ino-Shika-Cho trio, they thought that they could pick up the scraps of the battle between Naruto and green wearing guy and the team from the land of sound and pick up the pieces.

In their minds, they were confident that they were hidden enough so that none of them would be spotted like they did when it was with that white eyed, long black haired boy. Sadly they were mistaken as Naruto had heard them and launched an attack at them.

Since they didn't see it coming and until it was too late, compounding on this fact was that since Choji was a slow ninja thanks to his clan's special ninjutsu, this meant that he was not as fortunate as his two teammates who avoided the blast of pressurized air completely since he got a fairly large cut on his left hip.

The shouting out of pain was enough to make it aware to everyone wondering why Naruto had purposefully fired that there was someone else behind them spying on them.

Since his hands were still in the same hand seal and the fact that his enemies' focus was not on him and actually on someone else at the moment, the blonde haired boy took full advantage of the situation and took in a deep breath and exhaled an even bigger ball of air compared to the one that he did last time.

Not wanting to alert Dosu, Kin and Zaku, Naruto didn't call out the name of his jutsu this time which made it cost more chakra to get the same effect as doing it with calling the name since he didn't have that great of a control over his chakra. This was not a problem for the jinchuuriki of the Kyubi no Kitsune who had a major advantage compared to other people his own age when it came to chakra reserves thanks to being a power of human sacrifice.

_**Fuuton: Renkudan (Wind Release: Drilling Air Bullet Jutsu) **_Naruto chanted in his mind when he exhaled the large ball of wind towards the enemy. Since none of team sound was paying attention until it was almost too late. Thankfully in the case of team sound they were able to dodge the attack but not without taking some damage. The brunt damage taker was Dosu who got a cut going down his right shoulder to his forearm.

Seeing that Naruto had already done so much to put the match in their favour, the green spandex wearing genin decided that he should do his fair share of the work. The way how Lee was going to do this was to combine with Naruto and take out the leader in quick succession. It didn't matter to Lee about whose fight was whose; they needed to take out one person to even the odds and make it two on two as soon as possible.

As this was going on, there was something else that would give a lot of guys a nose bleed looking at what was happening behind the bushes. That was that Ino Yamanaka, one of the girls her age who had the potential to be one of the village's hottest girls in time was taking the bandages around her waist off to help Choji with the injury he had sustained.

Thankfully for the girl's dignity, she did not have to take enough bandages off so that her flimsy shirt showed her boobs as that was something that she certainly did not want to have to deal with that with Sakura around. The thought of Sasuke seeing her chest was oddly absent when she was thinking about her chest, or lack thereof.

Whilst Ino worried about her chest since everybody could now see her slightly too thin stomach, there was a battle going on not too far away between team sound and Lee and Naruto.

The pale blonde haired heiress of the Yamanaka clan was not the only one undoing the bandages that were on their personage as Lee was doing the same as he was preparing for his signature technique. That was the Initial Lotus.

Jumping quickly towards Dosu who was shocked by the amount of speed the boy possessed, there was little he could do when he felt a full frontal kick from the black haired boy who then vanished out of sight and reappeared behind the sound ninja and wrapped him up and proceeded with his decent down to the ground.

While this was happening Zaku realised that since Dosu was tightly wrapped up in the bandages which meant that he wouldn't be able to defend himself properly. As he was descending down to ground level thanks to Naruto's jutsu which he had to dodge unless he wanted serious bodily harm to happen to him, Zaku placed his hands in a position to prepare to save his teammate.

Naruto, for his part saw this happening and thanked his lucky stars that he had his hands in the position of the last hand seal needed for his jutsu and took another breath which culminated in Naruto launching another ball of compressed air towards Zaku this time to make sure that whatever countermeasure he had in place for Lee's attack, he would not be able to use it.

"**Fuuton: Renkudan (Wind Release: Drilling Air Bullet Jutsu)**" Naruto called out the name of his favoured jutsu and shot out another blast of air so that Zaku couldn't use whatever counter he was planning on using.

"Fuck." The bandage less boy called out as he watched helplessly as his teammate was spinning really fast wrapped up in bandages with no way to counter Lee's taijutsu technique as he got dropped head first at an incredible speed into the ground.

"**Goken: Omote Renge! (Strong Fist: Front Lotus!**" The green spandex wearing ninja enthusiastically called out as he used the second best technique that he had in his arsenal and was proud to see that it worked as he intended as this was the first time he had ever used it on an enemy since his sensei, Maito Gai forbade him from using as it was a highly dangerous technique.

The end result was that with the speed that Lee had gained thanks to using the first of the eight gates that made up the human body, it meant that he had done enough damage to cause a fractured vertebra in the spinal column of his enemy.

It wasn't as if Lee came out of that attack without any injuries either because the cost that it took his body to open the first out of eight gates that made up his chakra network was highly taxing for him to do the front lotus.

The only reason the boy used the jutsu was because he thought that his sensei's statement of dire situations applied since he was using it to protect one of his precious people being one Sakura Haruno. The other reason as to why he was using the technique was because despite the fact that it was highly taxing on his body, there was Naruto who was right beside him and would help him out.

The wrong thing about that thought was that Lee was so naïve to the fact that Naruto might not actually help him. Thankfully in the eyes of the green spandex wearing genin, Naruto would help as he was grateful that Lee had intervened on his behalf since he doubted he would be able to fend off team sound without him.

Seeing that his teammate of sorts for the moment was out of action as he was panting like crazy, Naruto decided that he should finish off Dosu to make sure that he doesn't get up again and attack when they weren't looking. That was why he threw a wind chakra enhanced kunai straight at the trachea of Dosu, permanently putting him to sleep.

Seeing what had just happened was something that he hadn't seen since all of the major injuries caused by his teammates were ones that were internal which meant that he didn't have to watch all of the blood pour out. Watching what had just happened in front of him certainly affected the words that came out of his mouth.

"That was unyouthful, he was already incapacitated, and you didn't have to throw that kunai." Lee stated with a frown on his face as he struggled to get back to a standing position thanks to the amount of fatigue coursing through his body.

Shrugging off the comment, Naruto replied with one of his own that shut the youth shouting ninja up. "I just made it two on two. How much would you hate yourself if that guy got up from your attack and killed Sakura?" Naruto rhetorically questioned to Lee who shut up and went silent as he had a bit to think about.

Shocked was the only word that came to mind for Kin and Zaku as they witnessed the ninja in charge of their team taken down by two genin from Konoha who looked like they didn't even have any problems in their upbringing managed to kill Dosu! Well that was it as they were going to make both Naruto and Lee pay!

Pulling out senbon from her pockets instead of kunai, it indicated to Naruto who was paying close attention that this girl was someone who was proficient in the use of senbon and some sort of long range augmenting her throwing capabilities.

The thing that baffled Naruto though was the fact that the other boy didn't take out any sort of metallic weapon to use, all he did was put both of his arms out, and the weird thing though was that there was a small cylindrical shape coming out of the middle of each palm.

Enraged by the death of not only his team leader but also his friend, Zaku charged up a fully powered version of his strongest attack and launched it in the direction of where Naruto, Lee, Sakura and Sasuke were.

When all of team 7 and Lee jumped out of the way to dodge the incoming attack of Zaku, everyone was concerned about their own wellbeing that they forgot about the Uchiha clan heir who was assumed to be unconscious. The pink haired ninja from the hidden leaf village realised this and shouted out. "Sasuke-kun!" hoping somehow that the calling worked and woke him up.

Thankfully for both Sakura and Ino who were in attendance, the pink haired girl's shout woke up the sharingan warrior who, having got an immediate boost from the cursed seal on his shoulder, put it to work and attacked the enemy but not before asking a question to Sakura to make sure who it was that he should attack. "Sakura… who did that to you?" Sasuke questioned in an unattached voice.

Not being able to utter a word because of the fact that her favourite boy in the whole entire world had these weird black markings all over his face and right arm and there was a corrupt chakra running through his system that was making his thought process not what it normally was.

Instead it was the boy Zaku Abumi who was the one who spoke up as he proudly boasted the fact that it was he who hurt Sakura since Naruto had killed his teammate and he wanted revenge for the action. "We did it!"

"Don't worry Sakura" the raven haired boy said although he didn't care about her. "Not only that but I feel power overflowing inside of me, in fact, I feel great. He gave it to me. I finally understand it, I am an avenger. Even if I must eat the devils fruit, I am on a path where I must gain power." Sasuke boasted as he looked straight at the two remaining members of team sound.

Before he could go on a rampage though at the two, Naruto intervened and through a wind enhanced kunai at Kin since she had all of her attention fixated on Sasuke the raw unbridled power coming from the curse seal. Since the girl did not see the attack coming, the kunai that Naruto through went straight through the girl's chest cavity in which it hit the heart killing the girl instantly as she dropped to the ground dead.

This action from Naruto was so cold in the eyes of not only Sakura but also team 10 who were in attendance spying on what was happening and Ino, being someone who hadn't seen death on a scale like this puked up whatever was in her stomach. The female that was standing next to the Hyuga clan heir was not fairing much better as she was leaning on Neji for support.

Going through the mind of the Hyuga prodigy was the fact that he finally had found someone that might be a challenge for him in his future in the tournament.

Seeing the death of yet another one of his comrades, the highly enraged Zaku let of his most powerful attack towards the four ninjas. Since his dead last of a teammate was injured in some form, Neji took it upon himself to pick up Lee and rest him on the branch where his female teammate Tenten was so that he was out of the way and she could protect him.

For team seven, each of them dodged on their own accord. For Naruto and Sakura, they both only dodged instead of going on the offensive. Unlike his two teammates who didn't attack, Sasuke being who he was wanted to get some fighting in with the new power that he had running through his system.

That was why when Zaku left himself defenceless with his attack, Sasuke used his newfound speed thanks to the cursed seal and his two tomoe sharingan and got behind the sound ninja and used a chakra enhanced back handed slap to Zaku which sent him flying away.

Before he came to a stop though, Sasuke once again appeared behind the boy and grabbed a hold of the sound ninja's arms with his foot in his back so that he couldn't move and started mocking him. "Heh, you're so proud of these arms aren't you. Tell me, what would you do without them?" the cursed seal using ninja said to Zaku.

Sasuke, not even giving the boy some time to respond to his rhetorical question used the added chakra coursing through his veins and dislocated and snapped the bones that made Zaku's upper arms in one go.

For Ino Yamanaka who was watching the whole confrontation in front of her, she was truly shocked as the Naruto and the Sasuke in front of her were nowhere near similar to the ones that she remembered from the academy. The fact that the bundle of happiness that was Naruto had changed so much put into perspective just how harsh the life of a ninja was. It was at this moment that unconsciously, the pale blonde haired girl not only said to herself that she would take her ninja life seriously but also that the Sasuke in front of her was not the one that she wanted to be the girlfriend of.

Seeing the destruction that her crush / love of her life had just done, Sakura ran over to the black haired boy and wrapped her arms around him and tried to calm him down. "Sasuke-kun, stop! … Please stop Sasuke-kun" Sakura said as she cried her heart out wanting to get the raven haired boy to stop using the power source on his neck.

It was also at this moment that Ino Yamanaka realised that she had lost the battle for Sasuke's affection because she knew that if she had done something similar to what Sakura had done, he would have just chucked her off.

Even then for the pink haired girl it was a hard task for her to get Sasuke to concede as it he had a counterargument prepared. "What about Naruto, didn't you see him just kill a girl in cold blood along with the other sound ninja?" the sharingan using boy called out feeling for the first time in his life the wrong side of double standards.

The reply that Sakura gave to her beloved crush was one that spelt the final conclusion of team seven. "I don't care about Naruto at all, all I care about is you Sasuke-kun." That statement alone coming from Sakura was enough for Sasuke to concede and make the curse mark recede back into where it came from.

This statement hit Naruto really hard though. For him, he had changed his whole personality into someone much more polite, nice and smarter compared to what he once was and yet it was all in vein in terms of having his teammates accepting him. It was at this moment that team seven was never supposed to be anything other than comrades and Naruto was a bit impatient when it came to obtaining his chunin flak jacket and moving away from the team though he would still keep in contact with his sensei as he was a nice person in his eyes and someone that would give him help to improve as a shinobi as long as he asked for the training and that he wouldn't look down on him as the Kyubi in human flesh.

As Sakura and Sasuke had dropped their guard because of the cursed seal retreating into his seal, they didn't notice the fact that Zaku had, as quietly as possible put a kunai in his mouth and got up and started charging at Sasuke albeit at a much slower speed.

Thankfully for the wellbeing of team seven, Naruto did notice this and flung another kunai from his pocket yet again with wind manipulation coating his kunai. With the more times he was throwing the things, the more that his proficiency in the art of chakra streaming was getting better.

With the lodging of the kunai through the stomach of Zaku, it made for a much more gruesome end to the boy's life compared to his two other teammates as since he didn't die straight away, he got to see quite a few of his internal organs come out and greet the Konoha ninjas in attendance.

Silence filled the clearing as all members of all teams including Naruto, Sasuke and Neji were shocked at what the blonde haired boy had just done. Despite the fact that Naruto had been killing quite a lot of people, he still had not overcome the feeling of ending someone's life and he doubted he would anytime soon.

Knowing that there was something even worse that he had to do, Naruto took a stab in the dark as he walked over to the slowly decomposing body of Dosu and held his breath along with closing both of his nostrils with his fingers and searched his body for the scroll that his team needed.

Thankfully for Naruto, he found the scroll quite quickly and got away from the body as quickly as he could as with his heightened sense of smell thanks to the canine sealed inside of him which made the smell of Dosu's dead body even worse than what it actually was.

Seeing that there were two other teams of ninjas around him; Naruto spoke up thwarting any attempts that they might have to steal their scrolls. "You do not want to attack us, one of your teammates is a liability and you are a Hyuga which means that you specialise in Taijutsu, this also means that the girl is the long range specialist. We know all about your team and the only thing that you know about our team is that Sasuke is fast and that I can use one wind ninjutsu, the odds are in our favour." Naruto stated evenly towards Neji and Tenten.

The Hyuga prodigy, being slightly apprehensive with fighting team seven thanks to that display of corrupt chakra from Sasuke, had Lee been at full health, well that was a different story. Signalling to his two teammates that it was time to go so that they could find their own scroll and get to the tower, both Tenten and Lee nodded and followed their team leader.

It was then that Naruto turned his attention to the next generation of the Ino-Shika-Cho trio who had come out from their hiding spot a little while ago to witness Sasuke's awakening. "You three don't even have the guts to fight, what makes cowards like you even have the chance to take our scroll from us?" Naruto questioned to team 10.

For the blonde haired spoilt princess, this was enough to set her off and got her angry because no one calls Ino Yamanaka a coward and gets away with it! Knowing that she wouldn't be able to get the scroll from a battle, the purple two piece wearing girl as sultrily as possible, made her way over to Naruto in the attempts to get his libido going which would make taking the scroll easy pickings for him.

This did not work out for her because Naruto had just experienced the real deal and the attempt from Ino was not working at all on him. The reason behind this was because since Karin-chan had a much better diet since she didn't starve herself to death, this meant that her body was in a much better shape than what Ino's was in.

"Stop you're attempt at seducing the scroll out of my hand Ino. You're anorexic, why would any guy want to be with you because you're very ugly with all of your ribcage sticking out." Naruto stated to the blonde haired girl who was stunned speechless, all of the magazines she had read said that guys liked girls who were as skinny as possible. Was her diet really that bad that she would be classified as anorexic? Well that was something that she would fix up on when she got out of this damnable forest.

It was then that the girl's attention was directed back at Naruto when he spoke. "Ino, did you know a better diet would not only increase your breast size but it would also make your skin look a lot better since you're getting the right amount of nutrients in your body. Plus… it would also allow you to spend more time doing bedroom activities since you will have much more stamina and will not tire out straight away." This was a shock to the blonde haired girl because she didn't know that a change in diet could change her appearance like that, well when she got home she was going to read up about it and if what Naruto said was true, she would do as he advised.

Since Sakura was off in her own world fretting and worrying about Sasuke, she didn't pay attention to what Naruto was saying and didn't hear the advice that Naruto had for Ino which she could use to her advantage.

Along with Sakura off in her own world and Naruto talking to Ino, Shikamaru didn't see anything wrong with what was going on and decided to lean up against the tree and rested since he knew that Choji would have trouble walking around thanks to Naruto.

Once all of the talking was done between the two teams, team 7 and team 10 parted ways so that team 10 could go and get the scroll that they needed while team 7 made their way to the tower in the middle of the forest of death.

**Time skip**

When Sakura, Sasuke and Naruto got to the tower the sun was long down and the night sky was filled with stars; they realised that this was the final part of the second exam and that it was here that they had to open the two scrolls that they had collected throughout the exam. Channelling a bit of chakra into the two scrolls, Naruto chucked both of them on the ground once there was a bit of smoke coming out of them.

Out of the smoke that was in front of them, out popped the chunin instructor that had been tasked to teach them all how to be a shinobi came out from the two scrolls. "Iruka-sensei?" Naruto questioned as he wondered why it was he that was standing in front of them.

Smiling because it seemed that Naruto had started taking his shinobi lifestyle much more seriously going by the new look of clothing that he had on. Dismissing his internal thoughts, Iruka spoke up. "At the end of the second test, it's up to the chunins to meet up with the exam takers and I was allowed to be the one that got to meet up with you guys.

I was impressed that the three of you managed to pass in just over two days; I thought that it would take longer for you but I am nonetheless impressed. All three of you have passed the second test of the chunin exams." The former sensei of team 7 stated to which all three of the genin ninjas in front of him smiled and in Sasuke's case smirked as the forest of death certainly lived up to its name when they were in there.

Seeing that they all wanted to go to bed, Iruka got on with what he was supposed to do so team 7 could get some much better sleeping conditions compared to the ones that they had the previous night. "This is the motto that I was supposed to tell you about when you summoned me.

The heaven in this paragraph refers to the human mind and the earth refers to the human body. If you lack heaven, seek wisdom and be prepared. If you lack earth, run in the fields, seek advantages. If you have both heaven and earth, then you can succeed in dangerous situations.

The five days that the second test goes for test the abilities of the genin and whether or not they are worthy of becoming chunin and you guys successfully passed that.

Chunin ninjas are at the rank of squad captains. That means that you have the responsibility to guide your team in missions. The knowledge, the stamina and inner wisdom are all things that chunins need to have for you duties." The chunin instructor lectured to his former students who all nodded showing that they comprehended what he was saying,

Just before Iruka used a jutsu to go back to the Hokage and report that his mission was completed, he had one final thing to say. "Now, is there one last thing that either of you three want to say before I go and allow you three to sleep?" the scar faced man stated.

Since Naruto had felt the betrayal from Sakura back in the morning when he had to fight the sound ninjas competing to obtain the rank of chunin, Naruto was angry with what she said and wanted to get back at her. The best way he knew how to do that was to do it through her crush. That was why he said what he did.

"Sasuke got bitten by Orochimaru and had some sort of jutsu used on him that made him unconscious for a long time and also made it that when he woke up, he used some form of chakra that was as evil as what the Kyubi's chakra was like." Naruto stated unemotionally to which both Sakura and Sasuke looked at him with wide eyes as the plan before they entered the tower was to not tell anyone about the seal on his collarbone.

This statement that came from Naruto was quickly met by Sakura speaking. "What are you talking about Naruto? We all agreed that we wouldn't tell anyone about what happened." The pink haired girl hissed at Naruto as she wanted to do this to impress Sasuke even if it made her concerned.

That statement that Sakura made was quickly and swiftly replied back to by the blonde haired boy. "In the forest, you made it abundantly clear when you wanted to stop Sasuke from going psycho that I wasn't a part of the team and that you only cared about Sasuke." Naruto said with a touch of venom lacing his words.

This reply was one that the pink haired girl was certainly not expecting because Naruto had never replied back at her with so much anger before. What she didn't know was that Naruto was holding a lot of it in which meant that Sakura wasn't getting the full force of his anger.

Iruka for his part was shocked that Naruto was showing signs of anger directed to Sakura. The Naruto that he knew was always happy and someone that would do anything and everything for Sakura. Seeing this new version of Naruto who was much colder compared to his previous self, made Iruka wish that was more like his previous personality compared to this new one.

Dismissing that, Iruka knew that he had to take this new piece of information to Hokage-sama straight away. "Very well then, all three of you are dismissed so you can get back to sleep but Sasuke, we will be talking to you tomorrow morning about the seal on your neck." The scar faced chunin stated to which Naruto sighed in relief as he wanted some sleep since he had stayed up for the better part of 19 hours in a row.

**In the premade beds**

Talking with his former sensei for Naruto was a weird experience as he realised that the man, if he wanted to could have trained him much better as a ninja considering all the amount of progress that he made by himself and with the slight bit of help from Kakashi compared to the 5 years that he spent in the academy.

That left a bad taste in his mouth because Iruka said that he thought of Naruto, not as a demon but as an actual person but considering his training in his early years at the academy, he doubted that he saw him as a human being then.

That meant that there was a high possibility that Iruka's opinion of him would slowly change back into what it was before since he was becoming more battle hardened and ready to do what was necessary, even if it was unethical.

Oh well, Naruto decided that if Iruka didn't like the new him then he would just make new friends who liked the new Naruto and was not just using him for some sort of plot for power.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

**I have two new stories out at the moment that I would recommend to anyone who likes my writing. One of them is set in the Narutoverse whilst the other one is in a totally different world.**


	15. Tell me

After getting out of the forest of death and into the somewhat comfortable bed for the first time in two days in which he had about 6 hours sleep to cover those two days, well he slept like a rock and didn't wake up till the afternoon that day after having gone to bed just after midnight.

What he missed since he was sleeping was the fact that Sasuke had been woken up by their sensei Kakashi so that he could use the **Fuuinjutsu: Fuja Hoin (Sealing Arts: Evil Sealing Method)** to prevent the cursed seal of heaven from having any effect on the sharingan wielding genin ninja.

Despite Kakashi being one of the village's finest people when it came to the art of fuuinjutsu, it did not meant that the technique he was using was one that was very technical. No, it was just one that required a lot of chakra to use.

Regardless of this being a jutsu that required a lot of chakra and Kakashi was someone who was one of the strongest ninjas in Konoha, didn't have enough of the stuff to overpower Orochimaru's chakra as well as the cursed chakra inside of the seal which meant that the seal would rely on Sasuke's willpower to be truly effective.

Eventually the screaming session of Sasuke was over and Kakashi was taken away of all of his chakra, the sealing of the cursed seal of heaven was done and now Sasuke could use chakra in his battle for the right to fight in the final round of the chunin examinations.

It was around this time that Naruto woke up feeling refreshed and yet also feeling insanely hungry. So much so in fact that the first thing that Naruto did once he woke up was head straight towards the buffet that they had set up for the people and made the space his own filling up his hollow legs with all kinds of fish, chicken and red meat to get his body back up to top physical form.

Everyone who was around him was shocked and stunned speechless at the amount of food that he was putting into his stomach and it was at this time that the 2nd generation of the Ino-Shika-Cho trio finished and when Choji saw Naruto eating with people around him staring in disbelief, well he chose this moment to beat Naruto in an eating contest.

Thus it was why it was all the more embarrassing for the Akimichi clan heir when he got full before Naruto did when the boy who had hadn't even noticed that he was there kept on eating. Finally five minutes after Choji had left as he was feeling ill, Naruto got up and left as if everything was normal, ignoring the dumbfounded looks on all of the proctors and all of the genin who had made it to the tower by this point.

**Time skip**

2 and a half days later and it was finally time for the preliminary rounds of the chunin exams to take place. During this time Naruto was heavily fretting about whether or not that Karin-chan had made it past the time slot without any permanent injury or scarring as he didn't want to have it on his conscience that he could have done something to save her but in the end he went for his selfish desires.

After having gotten a notice that required him and his team to head towards a certain hall so that the next round of the chunin exams could take place; with that in mind Naruto found his teammates who looked at him with a sour expression after in their mind he had ratted out Sasuke which meant that he had to get a seal on the seal which hurt like hell if Sasuke said so himself.

_Whatever, it's not my fault that things deteriorated to what they are like now because it was Sakura who started it all in the forest so I was just making things even. _Naruto thought to himself as he walked to the large rectangular room in the forest of death's centre tower.

**With Gai and Kakashi**

Seeing that Kakashi's team had made it to the tower before his team no less made there be a dint in his pride and he wanted to get back at the man that he proclaimed as his eternal rival. That was why he spoke in a slightly condescending tone towards Kakashi.

"Your team isn't too bad Kakashi, maybe they were lucky? But as long as my team is around getting any further is impossible since from now on it's about real ability. Well with youth there are sweet times and there are sour times eh, Kakashi?" Gai said with a small smirk on his face.

Kakashi having had to deal with this personality trait of Gai's when it came to he and Gai having some sort of competition together, used his normal Gai repellent which seemed to work fine. "Huh, you say something?" Kakashi said in his usual nonchalant tone of voice which managed to severely piss Gai off.

"Heh not bad my eternal rival Kakashi… you're cool in that way and it really gets on my nerves." Gai said to himself as he shook his fist whilst turned around so Kakashi didn't know that he had won the battle this time around but you don't get to be one of Konoha's best ANBU captains without gaining some observational skills so Kakashi already knew that he had one and hid a smile behind his mask.

**With the genin**

_Ahhh, so that's Gai-sensei's eternal rival. Gai-sensei totally loses it in terms of looks though. _That was the thought process of the only female member of team Gai.

Whilst the thought process of Tenten was accurate to what many people of Konoha would think, the uniquely thinking boy that was Rock Lee was on a totally different thought process. _I knew it! Among all of the teachers, Gai-sensei is the coolest. He's sparkling alright. Watch me Gai-sensei! I'll sparkle too!_

**With Hiruzen**

Looking over at all of the genin that had been recommended by their sensei to take the exam the Sandaime Hokage could tell that they were all right in their opinions because you had to have at least some form of talent to be able to make it this far and past the forest of death which was no easy feat in itself.

"For the coming third test…but before I explain that, there is something that I think you should know. It concerns the true meaning for the test." the professor stated to all of the genin in front of him who immediately wanted to know what the true meaning of the test was.

Before any of the genin in the room could ask what the true meaning of the test was, they realised that it was a rhetorical question as the Sandaime Hokage of Konoha was going to answer it for them. "Why do we have all of the countries in an alliance taking the exam together?"

"To promote friendship among the allied countries, to raise the skill level of shinobi you might ask? I don't want you to get confused with what the true meaning of what the exam is." Hiruzen stated before pausing allowing what he was going to say to sink in.

"The true meaning of the exam is a replacement for war among the allied countries. If you go back in time to when the allied countries were enemies who fought with each other to see who would rule.

In order to prevent pointless death, the stage that these countries chose for battle… that is the true nature of the chunin exams." The aging Kage stated to the chunin hopefuls below him.

Before anything could happen, Kurenai, the sensei of team 8 frowned and rested her hand on her head as she saw that Kiba was about to open his mouth. "What! Why the hell do we have to do this crap? Isn't this supposed to decide who is going to become chunin?" The boy with a dog on top of his head questioned to the Hokage.

Ignoring the fact that the boy from the Inuzuka clan who was brash and disrespected him by speaking before thinking and spoke to the group of onlookers.

For Naruto though, watching how much disrespect someone could use towards the Hokage compared to how polite he had to be with the jonin commander of the grass village, it made Naruto realise that once he became Hokage, there were a lot of things that he was going to have to change to get Konoha back up to a powerful village since the only reason they were still on the top of the food chain was because of the fact that they had the most amount of S-class ninjas in their ranks compared to the other villages which either didn't have the same number of average ninjas or didn't have enough higher ranked ninjas to combat the likes of Jiraiya, Kakashi Hatake, Maito Gai and Hiruzen Sarutobi.

"It is a fact that this exam decides which shinobi's have what it takes to become a chunin but on the other hand this exam has another side to it in which the shinobi's of each village risk their lives to protect their village's prestige." Hiruzen said once again being cut of this time it was by the Yamanaka clan heiress.

Confused as she didn't know what the fact that prestige had to do with the chunin exams that she was partaking in and said something that aided to the stereotype that blondes were stupid. "Prestige?"

"Yes, watching this exam will be all of the foreign dignitaries and people with influence who make up the many clients of the village as well as the fact that Village leaders will be attending the final round.

If the village shows that its ninjas are strong, the village will prosper. Conversely however, if the village is seen as weak, it will obtain less missions from clients.

And this will signal to other villages that our village has "this much" power so it will send a political message to the other nations." The Sandaime Hokage lectured to all of the genin in front of him and he waited for an outburst and he was none to surprised that it was the Inuzuka clan heir that was the person to speak.

Growling as he didn't like to be seen as a puppet for the older diplomats to use, Kiba loudly vocalised his disapproval to what was going on around him. "Yeah but why? Why do we have to risk our lives?"

"The strength of the country is the strength of the village. The strength of the village is the strength of its shinobi and a shinobi's true strength is only born through life risking battles." Hiruzen stated to which Kiba backed down as he knew that what the old man had said was true.

"This exam is to see each country's strength and for you to show off your own strength. It only has meaning because lives are at risk and that's why those that have come before you have fought in the chunin exam for this dream that is meaningful."

Not getting the reason as to why the dictator of Konoha had said the things about friendship at the beginning now that he was going off on a tangent about the exams being about war. Confused as she was, Tenten spoke up hopefully to alleviate some of that misdirection through words.

"I said it in the beginning. I don't want to confuse you with the purpose of the exams. By losing life and establishing balance. This is the shape of friendship between villages.

Before I let the exams go ahead there is one more thing that I want to say. This is a life risking battle and with you dreams and your villages' prestige on the line, do your best." Hiruzen said for the final time before he was interrupted once again but this time it was by a shinobi from a foreign village.

"I don't care, just hurry up and tell me what this life risking battle entails." The ninja from the village hidden in the sand who had a gourd on his back for whatever reason.

"Seeing as the next part entails the battles *cough*, how about I take over Hokage-sama? *cough cough*" a man who looked as if he was either a chunin or special jonin said as he dropped down to the arena where the genin where standing.

With a nod of the head, Hiruzen Sarutobi spoke up allowing the ninja to go ahead with whatever it was that he was going to say. "Very well."

"Right Hokage-sama, it's a preliminary for the third test to decide who gets to participate in the final exam in front of all of the influential people that pay large money to watch the exams."

Ignoring all the shouts of protest that were coming his way thanks to the genin who had struggled through the first and second test, Hayate spoke up again. "Because the first and second exams seem to have been too easy, we have a bit too many people remaining.

According to the chunin exam rules, we must have a preliminary round so that it reduces the number of participants for the third test. As Hokage-sama indicated earlier there are going to be many guests at the third test so the fights could take a long time and we are limited for time.

Anyway to those that are not feeling well… those who feel like quitting after these explanations, please come forward now as the preliminary rounds will start right now." Hayate stated to the group.

To the shock of Naruto who thought that anyone who had gotten this far into the tournament would continue on as far as they possibly could since they had done so much to get where they were. For Kabuto to quick at a moment's like this when it looked like there was nothing wrong with him, it only compounded onto the fact that Naruto thought that there was something wrong with the guy and that he should be looked at more closely by the ANBU.

Once everything was sorted out, all of the genin who wanted to become chunin went to the stands to watch how the fight took place and waited to see who would go first after having to listen to another lecture from the special jonin about the rules and regulations about what you could and couldn't do in the fights.

Seeing that the first two names on the board said that it was going to be a battle between Sasuke Uchiha and Akido Yoroi, Sakura got nervous as she wondered what it would be life for her precious Sasuke-kun since he had that seal on him which caused him a lot of pain.

With the two chunin hopefuls in their fighting positions indicating that they were ready to start the battle, Gekko Hayate said the words that made the match between the two leaf ninjas go ahead.

Yoroi, who was preparing his ability which allowed him to extract chakra from an opponent's chakra reserves and put it into his for him to fuel his jutsus; Yoroi threw a couple of shuriken and charged at Sasuke so that he could get into his preferred method of shinobi combat.

Sasuke for his part had turned on his sharingan so that he could see everything with clarity saw the flying pieces of metal and jumped out of the way so that he wouldn't get hit by any of them.

Whilst the Uchiha boy was doing that, he was going through some hand seals and placed his hands which were in the tiger hand seal to his mouth and exhaled multiple bullets of fire. **Katon: Hosenka no Jutsu (Fire Release: Phoenix Sage Fire Jutsu) **and shot five bullets of fire out of his mouth at quite a substantial speed that managed to make it so that two of the bullets hit his right leg causing significant damage, so much so that it made Yoroi a sitting duck for Sasuke's next attack.

Calling out the name of the next attack, Sasuke watched as the bolt of lightning that came from his mouth was too quick for the boy named Yoroi to dodge and he felt the effects of the lightning hit his hip as it pierced through the skin and went out the other side.

Seeing the damage that had been inflicted on his body, the pawn who was betraying his village for the likes of Orochimaru screamed out as the pain was like nothing that he had ever felt before. "Owwww! Ahhh I forfeit. Ahhh!" the boy shouted as he just wanted to get rid of the feeling in his hip as he hadn't had any training in the art of pain tolerance.

Before anything could happen in the form of a proctor stopping the match, Sasuke had run up to the limping Yoroi and launched him up into the air via a high kick to his abdomen whilst he was leaning with one hand on the ground.

Pushing off of the ground with chakra enhancing his leg muscles as he got behind the flying uncontrollably preparing to perform his new taijutsu combo that he had made himself with a little bit of help from a boy wearing green spandex.

Using a twisting motion to aid the power of his kick, Sasuke launched a vicious heel kick to the abdomen of the veil wearing genin's stomach which made the boy grunt in pain.

Using his left hand, Sasuke swatted his opponent into position and then landed a powerful punch to the boy's stomach with his right hand as he again twisted his body which set up his final move.

Using a leg drop that was aided by gravity, Sasuke watched how Yoroi hit the ground first thanks to the punches that he had set out before and used his heal on the vocal chords of the boy beneath him.

Seeing the damage that the last taijutsu that Sasuke had used, Hayate snapped out of the astonishment he was in as he didn't think that it was possible for a genin to know how to use multiple jutsus from two elements like Sasuke had just done. It showed him that the boy definitely deserved the tag of genius that the populace had given him.

"This fight *cough* is over. *cough*" Hayate said as he positioned himself in between Sasuke and the boy who had just had serious damage done to his vocal chords so that the medic Nins could come and whisk the boy away so that he could get the treatment he needed.

**With Ino**

For one Ino Yamanaka who was standing in the stands it was a shock to see the boy that she crush on be so brutal to someone who was from the leaf village and she could just imagine herself being in that position and it made the blonde haired girl realise that she wouldn't have got any special treatment from Sasuke.

This culminated in the fact that there more and more reasons being shoved in her face as to why she shouldn't have a crush on the Uchiha heir with nothing she was able to come up with able to counter what was right in front of her. It meant that one Ino Yamanaka had a lot on her mind.

It was then that the blonde haired girl looked up at the electronic board and realised that the person that she was going to face up against was none other than her former best friend Sakura Haruno. The reason as to why they were former best friends was because they had split their friendship over something as petty as schoolgirl crush on a boy.

Standing in front of each other on the floor that was where the two former best friends would do battle, both of the two girls were staring into each other's eyes, wondering what the other was thinking.

The first thing that happened between the two was that Sakura pulled a headband from in her hair and thrusted it forward so that Ino could see what she was doing.

There was a conversation between the two that Naruto thought was frivolous and was something that he didn't bother paying attention to as Sakura's background from what he could remember and even if there was something that had happened to her, it wasn't as if she was going to come to him and talk to him about it so as far as he was concerned he only had to put up with what her until the moment that he got his promotion to chunin and that was it.

Now that their 'girl talk' was over, the battle could finally get underway. Knowing that since Sakura didn't train at all when it came to her ninja abilities apart from improving her chakra control which did nothing if she had no worthwhile jutsus or techniques to use that chakra with.

This made Naruto know that it was either that it would be so one sided that Sakura would get dominated by her former friend or that the possibility of Ino having trained just as much as Sakura would make it so that the fight would be absolutely boring.

Only time would give Naruto the answer that he was looking for but his money was on the second possibility as Sakura ran at Ino whilst using the basic academy jutsu, the **Ninpou: Bunshin no Jutsu (Ninja Arts: Clone Jutsu) **and made two clones with one standing either side of the real Sakura.

Seeing the pathetic start that her former rival in the affections for Sasuke use such a basic jutsu that Sakura intended to beat her with, really drove home to Ino that she hadn't done enough training as Sasuke had shown lots of cool stuff, the same with Naruto and the only thing that she had was her mind jutsu and her hair trap jutsu but she didn't want to have to use it as it would take a long time to grow her hair back.

"This isn't the academy graduation Sakura; you think you can beat me with a textbook jutsu like that?" Ino shouted as she allowed Sakura to get in a free hit as she wanted to know just how much Sakura had improved.

Since Ino was so focused on watching what Sakura was going to do, she didn't realise that the pink haired girl had learnt the technique that Sasuke had learnt in that channelling chakra to boost of your speed when you jump as she got a cheek full of Sakura's fist

Angry at the fact that Ino had taken her so lightly, Sakura let her inner persona speak up for the first time in a long time. "If you think that I'm the same cry-baby Sakura from before, well then you're in for a world of hurt then Ino. Shannaro!" Sakura vehemently shouted out as she truly meant what she stated.

Taking things seriously from now on, both the blue eyed and green eyed girl charged at each other with their fists in preparation for the real battle that was just about to begin.

The moment that their fists collided, the two jumped back as they both picked a shuriken at one another. Coincidentally they also collided in the middle and it seemed if the two were doing some sort of simultaneous dance together.

It was weird for Naruto who was watching as while he thought it was a boring fight, it was kind of cool how the two somehow managed to make it symmetrical. What made it worse for Naruto and practically everyone else watching was the fact that it had been going on for the last ten minutes and it seemed if it was never going to end.

Seeing that things were going nowhere and that it would take forever for a winner in the battle, Ino decided that it was time that she took drastic measures to ensure that she won the battle with Sakura. The way how Ino was going to do this was to cut her hair off and use the jutsu that she had created with it.

Stunned speechless as for all of her life at the Konoha academy, Sakura knew that Ino was a girl who was serious when it came to her looks and didn't joke about anything that could make her look bad let alone do something irrational as cutting her hair.

Throwing the hair directly at Sakura, Ino proudly proclaimed that this was the moment that she was going to win their battle because she had a special jutsu that she was going to use.

As soon as every member of team 10 heard this they thought that Ino was going to use the same brand of Jutsus that made her clan famous and they thought it was a bad idea thanks to Sakura being able to dodge the attack. Sakura for her part was just standing still so she could see what her friend was going to do so that she could counter whatever it was.

Since Ino had good control over her chakra it allowed her to do a jutsu with her feet which meant that she could fake it with her hands and lull Sakura who knew all about the **Yamanaka Hijutsu: Shintenshin no Jutsu (Yamanaka Clan Secret Jutsu: Mind Body Transfer Jutsu.)**

Sakura thought that she knew all about the jutsu that Ino was about to use, so much so that she started to lecture Ino as if to say that she had grown up from the girl that she once was. "I can understand your desperation but that's useless.

**Yamanaka Hijutsu: Shintenshin no Jutsu (Yamanaka Clan Secret Jutsu: Mind Body Transfer Jutsu)**" Sakura recited as she finally had a chance to use all of the information stored in her head for something other than impressing Sasuke with the fact that she was smart.

Continuing on from where she left off, A jutsu where projecting your spiritual energy at your opponent, you can take control of their body for a few minutes." Sakura said to the Ino to which the blonde haired girl got angry as her former friend was suggesting that she knew more about her family's jutsus than what she did. To a girl like Ino that was just something that you didn't do.

"But that terrifying jutsu has a weakness. First the spiritual energy flies at a slow speed, second it only flies in a straight direction and finally it takes quite a while for your mind back leaving your body basically an inanimate doll.

"We won't know until we try!" Ino shouted and when she saw Sakura starting to move, she initiated a different jutsu compared to the one that everyone thought she was going to use.

"**Yamanaka Hijutsu: Shintenshin no Jutsu (Yamanaka Clan Secret Jutsu: Mind Body Transfer Jutsu)**" The blonde heiress to the mind reading clan shouted out as her body went limp.

Just when Sakura was about to shout out about how she had been the one who dodge the attack leaving Ino's body defenceless, there was laughter coming from the blue eyed beauty which indicated that Sakura had obviously falling into the trap that Ino had made.

Looking down Sakura realised that there was some chakra coming from the hair that Ino had tossed onto the ground which wrapped around her legs indicating that it was this that was keeping her from moving her legs.

Even Asuma and Shikamaru normally the strategists on the team were shocked as they didn't know that Ino could come up with such a good strategy and use it so well on her first try as obviously Ino wouldn't cut her hair off just to train.

Now at this moment in an alternate dimension, there would be a retarded Naruto screaming out at the top of his lungs accusing that if Sakura lost to Ino than she wouldn't be a woman. Saying this to a girl who had no tits compared to other girls her own age was something that really got the nerve of Sakura and would make her get angry and force Ino out of her mind.

But because of the fact that inside the forest of death, there was a falling out between Naruto and Sakura with Sakura being the one who started it, well it meant that Naruto didn't feel obligated to help her out.

What this meant was that Sakura didn't feel empowered to battle with Ino internally and get her out of her mind which resulted in the blonde haired girl saying, whilst she was Sakura's body that she forfeited which made the pink haired girl lose the battle.

"Sakura Haruno has forfeited the match *cough*, therefore the winner of the match between Sakura *cough* Haruno and Ino Yamanaka is Ino Yamanaka! *cough cough*" The sick special jonin called out to the crowd to which forced clapping started.

The moment that Ino released the jutsu, both she and Sakura dropped down to the ground without any feeling of consciousness as they had both exhausted all of their chakra reserves.

This meant that both Asuma and Kakashi had to go down to the stands to pick up their respective students and allow them to wake up in time. Seeing that Ino and Sakura wouldn't need any form of medical assistance, Hayate spoke up.

Hoping that this was the moment that Sakura needed to start taking her shinobi training seriously because by what she had just shown then, Sakura seriously needed to take things seriously if she didn't want to get a serious injury somewhere down the line.

**With Choji and Asuma**

"The next match will be between Neji Hyuga and Choji Akimichi. *cough* Will the two competitors come down to the ring please *cough*?" the kenjutsu based ninja questioned although it was more of a demand to the two ninjas.

Seeing that his "pleasantly plump" student was nervous about his upcoming battle, Asuma stated that if Choji won he would take him to an all you can eat barbeque restaurant and pay for his bill as a form of celebration. With this new form of incentive, Choji jumped down onto the floor so that he could start his battle with the Hyuga prodigy.

"Let the match between *cough cough cough* Akimichi Choji and Neji Hyuga begin!" Hayate called out before he jumped back to allow the two genin ninjas to duke it out although pretty much everyone Asuma knew that it was going to be a fairly one sided affair with the Hyuga boy coming out on top easily.

But this was something that Choji did not know and as the saying goes, ignorance is bliss and this was something that was affecting Choji to the highest degree as he had a large smile on his face as he started thinking about the food that Asuma-sensei was going to give him.

Well the Akimichi clan heir was all happy happy fun fun until the moment that the member of the Hyuga branch clan opened his mouth and used it to good effect. "It is fate that you are going to lose, just like it was fate that you were going to be ridiculed all of your life for being fat." Neji stated with a blank look on his face.

"I'M NOT FAT! I'M PLEASANTLY PLUMP!" Choji angrily called out as he placed his hands in a hand seal familiar to all members of the Akimichi clan and used one of the two jutsus that he knew. "**Akimichi Hijutsu: Nikudan Sensha no Jutsu (Akimichi Clan Secret Jutsu: Human Bullet Tank Jutsu)**" Choji called out before he shot out at Neji intending to make him eat the words he had just said.

Seeing that he had angered the boy into making a mistake which was incredibly easy thanks to the large amounts of insecurity the boy suffered from thanks to the ostracization that the kids at the academy had given him.

Activating his Byakugan dojutsu, the dojutsu that allowed him to see the chakra points along the body of the fat boy rolling towards him, Neji realised that it would be hard to attack the tenketsu whilst the Akimichi was rolling. That was why he had to find some way of stopping him before he could go for the finisher.

This was made insanely easy for Neji as he couldn't believe his luck as he just chalked it down to fate that the boy had been goaded into making a major mistake that made him crash into the wall with so much force that he got stuck the moment he jumped away to avoid the incoming attack.

Not being someone that didn't take advantages when they presented themselves to him, the Byakugan using boy launched at the "pleasantly plump boy" and struck a multitude of tenketsu's which was the way of attacking for any member of the Hyuga clan using the Jyuuken taijutsu style.

Allowing the boy to not humiliate himself any more considering how badly he had been defeated, Neji jumped away to give the boy a chance to forfeit. What Neji and the rest of the genins did not expect to happen was the fact that Choji started screaming horrendously as the pain was just too much to handle.

What Naruto and the other genin didn't know was that because of the fact that the Akimichi clan didn't have a bloodline of some sort to cope with the stress that they put their body under, it meant that they relied solely on chakra flowing through their body to deal with all of their body's components stretching to large limits.

When that feeling of chakra that was allowing the muscles to stretch to bigger sizes to what they were capable of handling safely, well let's just say that the outcome wasn't pretty and that was why Choji had tears running down his eyes and crying his lungs out.

As soon as Hayate realised what had happened, he immediately called the match in favour of the Hyuga prodigy and got the medic Nins to come out as quickly as possible and heal the large boy so that he didn't suffer any form of permanent damage.

Naruto, who had read that the Jyuuken was a highly formidable taijutsu style but it was not something that could end a match so quickly unless the enemy got hit by a palm thrust to the heart and he was certain that that didn't happen which was why he asked Kakashi-sensei what was on his mind.

"Well Naruto, the Akimichi clan relies on having chakra stretch the muscles when they use their jutsus whilst the Hyuga clan specializes in blocking the flow of chakra around someone's body. Try imagining stretching your muscles like Choji did without having something like chakra to reduce all of the injuries that you face as it would be over 100 times more painful compared to when you broke your leg in Kusagakure." Kakashi stated to his student who grimaced and nodded as he didn't want to imagine what Choji was going through.

During his questioning of what had happened, Naruto had missed the fact that the proctor of the prelims had already announced who the next two competitors would be. They were Hinata Hyuga and Misumi Tsurugi.

For Naruto, he was wondering whether or not she was more skilled then the rest of the girls her age as the fight between Sakura and Ino was one that did not paint a good picture on female genin kunoichi, thankfully for Naruto, he had already met Karin-chan who dispersed that thought train immediately when she healed his leg.

**With Hinata**

For the milky eyed girl that was the Hyuga clan heiress, she was debating whether or not she would be able to go through with what she was facing but then she remembered the fact that she had managed to past the other two rounds of the chunin exam without needing to borrow some confidence off of Naruto to get her through some tough situation.

This was something that Kiba eagerly told her, that she shouldn't just use Naruto's confidence and that she should use the confidence that she had inside of her. Looking up at the stands, Hinata could see the smiling expressions from Kurenai-sensei and Kiba-kun and a nod from Shino-kun.

From there, Hinata looked over to Naruto to see whether or not this new change of his would hopefully allow him to realise that she had quite a big crush on him. Sadly though this didn't happen as he was more interested in whatever it was that he was talking about with his sensei.

Hinata, the girl who wouldn't intentionally hurt a fly was someone who never got angry. This was the rule, though always and I mean ALWAYS, rules have exceptions to them.

This was the case however as the lid that was Hinata's anger for being trodden on a lot of her life lifted open at realising that even though she had gotten stronger and gotten more courage over the last few days for the tests that she had gone under to get where she was, Naruto wouldn't even notice the fact that she had changed because he never noticed her.

Looking back at the smiling face of her sensei and the cheering Kiba beside her, Hinata resolved in her mind that this fight wouldn't be one for proving to Naruto that she was strong as she was slowly proving that to herself without him and that this fight was solely for her to prove to herself that she didn't need the courage and determination of Naruto as she had her own that she could use.

"The match between Hinata Hyuga and Misumi Tsurugi will now begin. Hajime!" the ninja whose abilities primarily focused around his sword said which brought the attention of Neji Hyuga as he wanted to see just how pathetic his cousin still was.

Since the fact that Hinata was determined to prove to herself that she didn't need boys like Naruto to fill her mind and that she was angry at how he didn't pay attention to her, this was why she shot off at her fastest speed the moment that the proctor told her it was okay.

Activating her Byakugan, the normally shy girl saw in full detail how the boy who was Orochimaru's underling body became far from normal as it stretched and dislocated the bones to make it easier for some taijutsu she assumed.

Knowing what her cousin had done to Choji, Hinata knew that all she had to do was land a hit on the dislocated joints and the fight between the two would be game set and match.

When Hinata went with her first strike on the outstretched palm of Misumi she was not surprised when she saw how it wrapped around her arm and tried to get her into a wrestling match. The girl had planned for this as she used her other arm which had already started its movement sequence before the limb rapped around her own and used a pulse of chakra combined with her finger poke to make the limb of Misumi start sending major messages of pain to his brain and lots of them.

So lots in the fact that she was in a serious battle, Hinata continued on as she hit two other points on each arm and watched how the limbs did not look as if they were in the right place.

Seeing the same thing that had just happened to Choji, Hayate once again immediately called the winner in favour of the Hyuga clan and called for medics to come and pick the boy who was injured up and take him to the medical ward.

The moment that Hinata was announced as the winner, she was broken out of her fight induced tunnel vision on her opponent and realised that people were clapping heavily for her with Naruto even being one of them although the girl noted that Neji was someone who was absent from clapping.

With this being the first form of attention and public praise, it was just too overwhelming for Hinata and she voiced her thanks by making a squeak, face turning red, the poking of her fingers together and a few moments later, the loss of consciousness.

Before the petite yet incredibly busty for her age frame of Hinata could hit the ground as she had no control over her body, the mother-like figure in Kurenai-sensei was there to congratulate her student on the performance that she had made and the strides in getting rid of her shyness was leaps and bounds beyond what she had thought she would have made during the exams.

For Neji was mildly shocked, what he wanted to know was what made it so that Hinata got angry for a moment there before reverting back into her shell? What was it that made her confident enough to even pass through here because from what he knew of her just a few little words before would have been enough to emotionally crush her? What had happened to make her this new Hinata?

For Naruto, he was incredibly impressed because compared to the fight with Ino and Sakura, well it was a major step up in terms of performance and abilities as the fight, had Naruto not seen the exact same thing in the previous fight, he would have been amazed and thoroughly impressed, but at the moment he was just interested in how powerful the Jyuuken was on someone like him.

The weird thing though was that he finally understood why it was that Hinata got all red in the face was because she never had any forms of praise on a large scale like it was and when she was around him in the academy, they must have been the first ever times that she had someone to talk to and it made Naruto feel guilty in hindsight as he knew that he should have been there for her. Maybe later down the road he could become friends with her but for now he had a job to focus on and that was that it was now his turn to do battle as he looked on the board and saw that he was going to be battling the girl from Lee's team.

With that thought, Naruto jumped down into the rectangle as he was unaware as to the conversation going on between his sensei and the man's self-proclaimed eternal rival.

**With Kakashi and Gai**

The moment that the green spandex wearing ninja noticed the fact that one of his students was going up against one of Kakashi's students, well it meant that they could have another bet in which he would surely win.

At that same time, Kakashi knew this fact to and promptly groaned as he didn't want to have to deal with Gai like this but unfortunately for him, the taijutsu focused ninja mistook this groan as a sign that he was going to win the battle easily.

"Yosh Kakashi my eternal rival, it has been chosen that one of our students will do battle with each other and I propose a bet." The man that spoke about the springtime of youth shouted as he was a highly competitive man and wanted to beat Kakashi.

Now whilst Kakashi was a normally clam man who didn't have anything get underneath his nerve, his rivalry with Gai was one thing that always did get Kakashi's blood flowing as he wanted to discreetly prove that he was better than the wacko beside of him.

Not even bothering to turn his head away from the book in which a woman named Asuko was getting it on with a man called Seichi. Maybe if he knew exactly which two people Jiraiya had used to base those characters around which were coincidentally his parents, then he would stop reading the franchise called Icha Icha series "What are the stakes Gai?" Kakashi questioned to his friend although he wouldn't call him that in public.

Since this was the first time that the second generation rivalry between Gai and Kakashi, the man in green thought that this bet needed stakes that were truly worthy for the special occasion since it was a battle with a lot at stake no less.

Proudly speaking, Gai boasted so that everyone could here what the bet was going to be about. "Kakashi, my eternal rival, if I win, you must stop reading Icha Icha as well as not wearing a mask around your face for a whole entire year!" Gai proudly proclaimed to the man he was confident he was going to beat thanks to the skill that Tenten had.

Dead silence hung in the air as this was something that all of the people from Konoha and even the elder members of allied villages dropped their mouths open in shock. Only did they realise the severity about what was going to happen soon and the severity of what Gai had just said.

For both male members of the Sarutobi clan, they just guffawed as they couldn't believe what Gai had just said because from what they knew, right now, this was as serious as when Minato sealed the Kyubi inside of Naruto and when the Uchiha clan tried to revolt and start a coup de tat.

For both Anko and Kurenai, this was something that they couldn't be happier about as both of them being women, they wanted for Kakashi to get rid of that damned book. What they wanted to know more was what Kakashi looked like underneath the mask as that was something that had been a rumour and mystery throughout all conversations involving the legend that was the Mirror ninja.

Kakashi on the other hand, when he heard what was at stake, put his book away, lifted up his headband and stared directly into Gai's face with his sharingan to tell whether there was any lie coming from the Elite Jonin.

When he could tell that Gai was being honest and was trying nothing subtle, he conceded and started to weigh up his options on whether or not this was something that he was willing to do if he lost.

_Well I am sure that Gai got the mirroring version of my team so that means that Tenten is the Kunoichi of the year for her class so Gai must be confident with her as well as the fact that he has been able to train her for over a year._

_On the flipside of things, Gai must think that Naruto is the dead last of the class and that this will be a fairly easy win since I have only had 5 months to get Naruto into a decent genin. What he doesn't know is that Naruto is already at chunin level_

_Fine I will go along with this because I know that Naruto will win, even if it does come down to it, he has the Kyubi to back him up._

"Very well then I'll agree to it as long as if you lose, you have to stop saying anything related to youth of youth itself and stop wearing the green spandex for a whole year." Kakashi replied in a nonchalant tone of voice that betrayed the seriousness of the situation.

Now if anyone thought that the stakes on Kakashi's side were bad enough, well they were beyond speechless as they heard what Kakashi had just said. It was so shocking that the pipe that was in the mouth of the Sandaime Hokage and the cigarette that was in his son's mouth both fell out as they couldn't believe what they had just heard.

It what was happening to Asuma and Hiruzen was bad, well then spare a thought for the boy who practically looked up to Gai as if he was his own father and the only role model he had in life had just made a bet with him not wearing green spandex and shouting youth! IT WAS SACRELIGUOUS. IT WAS BLASPHEMY.

For Anko and Kurenai, the only two women in the room that were above the rank of chunin and knew just how bad Gai was when it came to his fashion sense and what his personality like; they were beyond happy as it was definitely a good thing if Gai stopped wearing green spandex and stopped shouted about youth.

That was why there was a lot riding on this battle and it was also the reason why Kakashi took measures to ensure the fact that he won this bet as he didn't want to give up the great literature that was Icha Icha.

Using Chakra to enhance his vocal chords, Kakashi spoke to Naruto who was just about to start his match with Tenten. "Naruto if you win this fight, I will use all of my influence as former ANBU captain and as possible candidate for the position of Hokage, I can make it so that you have a lot more missions to Kusagakure so that you can see someone special.

IF you lose however I can assure you, you will never get a mission to the land of grass again." Kakashi said with a bit of killer intent thrown the way of Naruto who only nodded and had a determined look on his face.

"Kakashi-sensei, how badly do you want to beat her? Do you want me to utterly humiliate her or just do enough to win?" Naruto questioned to his sensei who smiled as he liked the confidence that Naruto had.

Tenten for her part was furious that she was just immediately cast aside in the conversation that Naruto was having with his sensei about he was going to beat her and he was asking how he should do it. For a girl who was the extreme feminist who thought that Naruto was just assuming that he was going to win because he was a male and she was a female.

Though since Hayate hadn't called the match because he was heavily interested in the bet taking place between Kakashi and Gai which meant that she wasn't able to attack Naruto because of his chauvinistic views.

"Just do enough so that it's clear that I'm a better sensei than what Gai is okay?" Kakashi questioned to which Naruto nodded and turned his attention back to his opponent Tenten.

On the behalf of one Hiruzen Sarutobi who was a bit peeved that Kakashi had pulled rank in the bet even if it was true that he was the next Hokage for Konoha since neither of his students were around to take up the mantle of Hokage but the fact that this bet was something that had brought a bit of fun back to Konoha as ever since his lecherous student had left the village, Konoha was just nowhere near as fun as what it used to be.

Since Gai was an elite jonin and didn't have anything that Tenten would make her fight that little bit harder apart from the cheers of the springtime of youth, this was why he was slightly nervous as Naruto had extra motivation by the sounds of it whilst Tenten had no extra motivation.

This train of thought was quickly snuffed out as from the performance of Sakura which was nowhere near the quality of what Tenten could do with one hand tied behind her back, this added onto the fact that she was supposed to be the best of her year whilst Naruto was supposed to be the worst of his year. These thoughts reassured Gai that he would finally get to see underneath the mask of his eternal rival.

"Right, let the match between Naruto Uzumaki and Tenten Higurashi Begin" Hayate called out not because he wanted to see the match and who it would be who won but because of the fact that who would subsequently lose the bet.

**With Tenten**

Because of the fact that Naruto was underestimating her in her opinion because of the fact that she was a girl, it got Tenten furious which hindered her abilities as a ninja. What she didn't know was that Naruto was confident that he could win on the sole fact that he had much more to fight for compared to Tenten as he wanted to see Karin-chan more times in the future

What all this culminated into was that Naruto was calm, collected and determined whilst Tenten was agitated and this was made know when she was the first person to attack the other.

Testing out to see how good Naruto was, the pink blouse wearing girl threw a shuriken aimed right at Naruto. Seeing the flying piece of metal, Naruto took one step to the right and dodged the shuriken.

Seeing that throwing one shuriken wasn't enough to make Naruto do something that would make her know just how good he was, Tenten chose this time to throw four shuriken and a kunai at Naruto to see what he would do.

She was sufficiently surprised when she Naruto drop to the ground into a push-up position and the moment the flying pieces of metal went over his head, Naruto jumped right back up into position with his arms folded across his chest.

Seeing that Naruto had almost effortlessly dodged the attack, Tenten got angry as she wanted to shove it in the face of who she thought was a chauvinistic male's face that women could be better than men. The way how she did this was via using a summoning scroll and throwing the weapons out of them directly at Naruto.

Thanks to all of the supplements and the intense muscle building training that Kakashi had given Naruto, he was able to dodge the incoming killing objects with a fair amount of ease.

The moment that Tenten hit the ground she was quickly going through her new attack as she wanted to wipe that impassive look off of Naruto's face and get him to show some sign that he was taking her seriously. Little did the kunoichi genin from Konoha know that Naruto had read in his books that one was not supposed to give away what they were going to do and not show their pain or exhaustion through their facial expressions.

That was why Naruto didn't have anything happening visually which made Tenten all the more angry as she thought that her blonde haired opponent wasn't taking things seriously.

Holding onto the summoning scrolls in her hands, Tenten launched herself into the air so that she could use her best move against Naruto, one which wouldn't allow him to dodge as there was just too many items to dodge and not enough time nor space.

Opening the scrolls, the girl who had her hair styled in a two buns on top of her head shouted out the name of her technique "**Soshoryu! (Twin Rising Dragons!)"** As she picked out every weapon that she could get her hand on as soon as possible and threw it as fast as possible towards the blonde haired boy.

**With Gai**

Being the type of man that he was, it was paramount for Gai to start trash talking in the polite yet smug tone that made Kakashi know that Tenten was going to win this battle.

"Despite Naruto-kun's impressive speed, there is no way that he can dodge the youthful attack of Tenten-chan! Her youthfulness will beat the hip and cool attitude of Naruto!" Gai proclaimed as like everyone else, including Orochimaru and Hiruzen thought that Naruto was going to lose as there was no way that he would be able to dodge all of the incoming weapons.

But for Kakashi Hatake who knew what element Naruto had, he knew that Naruto didn't have to dodge the weapons coming at him. Deciding to be quiet now as it would make Gai more confident which would, in the end make the victory all the more sweeter, Kakashi for once took his eyes out of his book as he wanted to use his sharingan and remember for life the look of slow realisation and horror on Gai's face as he watched Naruto beat his student.

**With Naruto**

Seeing that his opponent was in just as much of a predicament as he was because of the fact that she couldn't move and was a sitting duck up in the air, Naruto quickly decided on how he was going to finish this and made the appropriate actions to do that.

Going through some hand seals, Naruto and thrusted his hands together whilst calling out the name of his jutsu. "**Fuuton: Daitoppa (Wind Release: Great Breakthrough.) **What this did was that it sent a powerful gust of wind in the direction of Tenten, one so powerful that it sent all of the weapons that she had thrown at Naruto right back at her.

**With Kakashi**

Right now at the moment, the infamous mirror ninja was having the time of his life as his sharingan was recording the slowly changing facial expressions on the face of his "eternal rival" as the man realised that Naruto knew a jutsu that was the perfect countermeasure for all of the techniques that his student knew.

The look of pure horror and realisation that he was going to have to give up his pride and joy green spandex training suit as well as stop shouting about how youthful everything was something that, to Kakashi nobody could have paid enough money to make this happen and he was thankful for Naruto's change in personality.

**With Tenten**

Seeing that all of the weapons that she had thrown at the boy were coming right back at her with an even faster pace than what she through them at, the pink blouse wearing kunoichi had little time to react as she protected the vital parts to her body and hoped for the best.

Sadly for her that was not going to end well for her as she received multiple cuts along her legs with one being enough to rip her left leg's pants from the knee down completely off. The other weapons hit her in the arms and her thighs as she did her best to protect herself against her own attack.

If she thought things couldn't get any worse, well then she was wrong because Naruto had seen the predicament that she was in and decided that right now was the moment that he was going to go in for the kill.

The way how the Uzumaki boy did that was to jump up into the air thanks to some chakra sent to his legs and go through the hand seals of his most powerful and trump card jutsu.

When Naruto was only a metre or so away from Tenten, the boy called out the name of the jutsu, inhaled the appropriate amount of air and let loose the jutsu. "**Fuuton: Renkudan (Wind Release: Drilling Air Bullet Jutsu)"**

Everyone in the room watched with mixed emotions at how the ball of compressed bladed air was sent directly at Tenten who took the full brunt of the attack getting a nasty scrape along her ankle to which she promptly screamed out in pain and got carried away into the wall where she hit her head and went into the land of unconsciousness.

Seeing the damage that had been done to Tenten which left her unable to fend for herself, Hayate with a smirk on his face because he realised what this meant for the green spandex wearing elite jonin and called the match in favour of Naruto.

"The winner of this match is Naruto Uzumaki." Hayate called out to the crowed which received a round of applause as all the jonin barring Orochimaru in disguise and Maito Gai were impressed with what Naruto had just displayed.

Despite having watched his student lose, Gai was more concerned with the fact that he had lost the bet, so much so that he was ramrod still and the only way how he made a movement of his body was when Kakashi called out to him. "So Gai, that was the springtime of youth wasn't it? It was just so youthful it makes you want to where green spandex constantly doesn't it?"

The only response that Gai gave to his eternal rival was to drop to the ground in a faint but not before saying one last thing. "DAMN YOU KAKASHIWITH YOUR HIP AND COOL ATTITUDE, IT MAKES ME SO MAD!"


	16. Did you fall from a shooting star

**Author's Note:**

**Sorry to all of those people that wanted me to update this story sooner but I have other stories to update as well. The other reason as to why I am not uploading anywhere near as fast as what I used to be doing is because I recently got a full time job (even if it is shit) and that takes up a lot of the previous writing time that I had.**

**Anyways, hope you don't mind the wait although there isn't anything that you can do about it.**

* * *

><p>Seeing how Naruto had used the cutting prowess of his wind affinity to cause quite a lot of bleeding, it meant that the brunette girl had to go to the infirmary and get healed up from her injuries less the weapons girl wanted to have some serious injuries; that was why the medics came into the hall which housed the shinobi fight between two genin gunning for the position of chunin and quickly put the girl on a stretched and carried her away from the arena and treating her so that she didn't suffer anymore at the hands of the demon who had gone over the top with his attack.<p>

**With the rookie nine**

Everyone from this group was incredibly shocked as they had definitely not expected the performance that Naruto had just given as in comparison from where he was less than six months ago, he couldn't even make a henge jutsu and yet now he could pull off B-ranked elemental ninjutsu? How had Naruto improved so much in this short turn around?

The one that was racking their brain the most was Shikamaru, the boy from the clan that more often than not produced intellectual geniuses that could solve anything and everything was having trouble trying to put the pieces of the puzzle which was Naruto's shinobi skills and he just couldn't do it.

_Is Kakashi-sensei that good of a teacher that he can turn someone like Naruto who was the dead last of the class and turn him into someone that could rival Kiba and Sasuke? I mean sure, Asuma-sensei was mentioning about how good of a shinobi Kakashi was but to think that Naruto could improve this much in such a short time considering how good he was before and how much progressed he made through the academy is just unfathomable. Oh well, this is just too troublesome._

Kiba was also thinking along these lines as he just couldn't believe that the dead last had gotten so strong in a short amount of time._ How did the dobe get so good so quickly, he was crap in the academy and it took him over three years to learn the __**Ninpou: Henge no Jutsu (Ninja Arts: Transformation Jutsu)**__ and yet now he can pull off all of those cool jutsus like it was nothing. Is Kakashi-sensei, the guy who mum was talking about as who she wanted to be my sensei, is he really that good? _In the end though, what Kiba had just seen was something that he couldn't readily believe and put it down to just being a fluke and nothing worth racking his brain over.

Not only was it that all of the rookie nine were taking an incredible interest in all of the skills that Naruto had just shown, but this was also a sentiment that was shared by both of the jonin-sensei who took on a team from Naruto's year.

Asuma for his part was beyond impressed with how well Naruto could control his apparent wind affinity at such a young age because it took him 3 more years to get proficient enough in wind release so that he could use a jutsu like that and the only other person who he had heard of to have a better proficiency in wind ninjutsu was Danzo Shimura, the man after his father's position of Hokage and the Nidaime Kazekage who had used his skills to subdue the Ichibi no Shukaku tailed beast when it broke out of its first jinchuuriki. This was all the more reason as to why Asuma wanted to see how Naruto progressed in his future as a shinobi.

The other thing that had grabbed Asuma's attention was the fact that he had also read the report into the skills of Naruto Uzumaki when he was still in the academy and after having read that and now looking at what the boy had just achieved made him seriously question just what they were teaching the kids at the academy as he was sure that Naruto, being the Jinchuuriki did not get the proper treatment in his learning.

The other sensei was having contrasting thoughts was he genjutsu specialist of Konoha was looking at the blonde haired boy in a new light. From what she had seen, Naruto looked like something that was becoming more and more like the Kyubi as he had the elemental affinity which was dubbed the "killing element".

Now this mind due rather one sided point of view was coming from the woman who had lost her father in the Kyubi attack and had never gotten over the fact that her only shinobi role model was dead and had diverted some of her anger onto the jinchuuriki of the beast that had killed her dad.

Seeing that Naruto was becoming more and more like the Kyubi and less like the boy that was happy about everything, made Kurenai decide at that moment that she would be a bit more forceful in getting Hinata to drop her crush on Naruto as the only reason she was allowing it to continue up until now was the fact that it was helping the girl she liked as a daughter break out of her shell but it seemed that in the end Hinata didn't need that help from Naruto and relied on her own confidence.

Now that she had made up her mind on what she was going to do concerning her own students and Naruto, the mind of the genjutsu mistress wandered off to other thoughts such as how Naruto had gotten so good of a shinobi in comparison to what he was like when she read his academy file but in the end she just dotted it down to the fact that the boy had Kakashi Hatake as his sensei and that was that.

But the person that was the proudest out of all of the people in the room was none other than the person he looked down upon as if he was his surrogate grandson. That person was the Sandaime Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi.

Seeing that Naruto was well on his way to becoming a great shinobi like his mother and father, Hiruzen was thankful that Kakashi had gotten Naruto on the right path as he knew that a jinchuuriki Naruto that kept along the same path that he was previously headed for was not someone he would ideally want in his shinobi forces as someone who had the Kyubi sealed inside of them needed a good control over their emotions to use the beast's chakra effectively for the good of the village.

Seeing that Naruto had the same element as his youngest son, Hiruzen wondered whether or not if he made the right decision when it came to Naruto's teacher but in the end, seeing the results that the former ANBU captain had made in such a short time immediately snuffed out that idea.

For the Sandaime Hokage, he was eagerly awaiting Naruto's match in the final round of the chunin exams in which he would have one month to get stronger and show the world just how much potential he had inside of his body.

**With Lee**

Because of the fact that Neji was someone who believed in fate, he didn't shed any form of emotion when it came to Tenten losing as he thought that it was fate since she came up against a wind user, which was her major weakness as a shinobi.

That meant that with the sensei of team 9 having lost consciousness because of the result of the bet that he had made with his eternal rival, it meant that the sole person that was flying the flag of youth was Rock Lee and the boy saw that this was a challenge and one that he would not back down from.

Jumping down the railing, the green spandex wearing boy went on a speech about he fooled someone when it came to not wanting to have his match which made everyone in the room question whether or not he was entirely there in the head. Neji though, he just held his head down in shame as he did not want to associate himself with people like lee and Gai as they were highly embarrassing.

"To be able to face you so early, it makes me so happy." Lee stated and with his arm thrusted out forward with his thumb sticking up, Lee gave Gaara a massive smile that was unnerving for the jinchuuriki of the Kyubi no Kitsune.

Not sure what to make of his opponent, the red haired boy just stared emotionlessly at Lee, waiting for the match to start so that he could kill once again.

**With Kankuro**

Looking down at the kid that was going to face his brother, Kankuro wondered what type of attacks the bowl cut genin ninja used but then in the end he dismissed his thoughts as he knew that whatever techniques that the kid his age wouldn't have anything that would trouble his brother because his brother had never gotten a scratch on a mission so what was the chance it was going to happen today? That's right, there wasn't much chance of that happening.

The musings of the middle child of the Kazekage were brought to a halt as the man who was proctoring the match called for the match to now go ahead and he got to watch Le and Gaara go at it.

**With Gaara**

The first thing that happened for this match was the fact that the green spandex wearing genin ninja who was highly impatient ran towards the ninja from the hidden sand village and launched an attack.

"**Goken: Konoha Senpu! (Strong Fist: Leaf Whirlwind!)"** The boy with obvious enthusiasm shouted as he could not keep the excitement from entering his voice as he wanted to fight with Gaara since he knew the kid was someone that was really strong.

It was then that everyone who hadn't me Gaara before were shocked with what they saw. For one thing, they certainly didn't expect for the gourd that the boy carried around to be full of sand to which the boy used without any expression change on his face.

Not only did the sand that Gaara used to block himself with serve as his primary form of defence but it also served as his primary form of offensive attacks as the sand coiled around the offending appendage that was used to attack him.

Seeing that it was an attack by the way it curled around is leg, Lee used his trademarked speed to dodge the attack from Gaara and used this as a base to see what his opponents jutsu was about and how he was going to beat it.

Being the type of person that he was, Lee did not even hesitate once when going onto the offensive again and launched a fast, powerful punch at the red haired boy but once again the sand that was on the ground came up prevented the attack from making contact with Gaara's face.

For the next five minutes, the fight between Gaara and lee was a fast paced one that showed off the fact that the two genin from different villages had high amounts of stamina in that they could keep this up and the thing that made it the more impressive was that they were both holding back.

It was also around this time that the sensei of Lee started regaining consciousness and watched the battle intently before making a judgement call when his prized student jumped back onto statue of shinobi hands that were in a tora hand seal so that he could plan his next move as what he was doing now didn't seem to be working.

"Lee!" Gai shouted to his student as he gained the boy's attention so that he could listen to what he had to say. "Take them off!" the exuberant man shouted to his student who only looked back in astonishment.

Going together with the look of astonishment was a protest as Lee had been specifically told by the man that he idolized as if he was his father to not take the weights off unless he was using the speed to protect someone precious to him. "But, but Gai-sensei! That's only for when I need to protect someone precious to me." Lee replied, not sure what he was supposed to do with all of this contradicting information going into his head.

With a smile that could put the former Naruto to shame, Gai spoke up as he gave a thumbs up to his student who, when he heard the news, he got a massive grin on his face. "It's okay Lee, I'll allow it." Gai stated with a smile on his face.

When the green spandex wearing boy heard this statement from his father figure, Lee quickly pulled his leg warmers up and removed the weights that were tied around his legs.

For Naruto who was looking on at what was happening with Lee and wondered just how much weight the boy was using as Naruto knew that using weights to get stronger was a good way to do it as he had firsthand experience with the weight seal that his sensei used for those rocks.

Kakashi on the other hand could only sigh as he should have known that the man who was his eternal rival would have passed on all of his bad traits to his student and this was easily visible with the weights as the mirror ninja could see how much weight was on the kid's legs and how much of an increase in speed that would give the boy.

For everyone else in the room, they were all wondering what taking off some weights would do for his battle as they assumed that they couldn't have been that much. They were all proved wrong as the ankle weights formerly strapped around his ankles dropped from his hands to the ground like a bullet and made a large crash with the ground leaving a crater and lots of smoke.

"Lee, Go!" the sensei of team 9 from Konoha called out and the boy with the bowl cut hairstyle nodded to his sensei dutifully and then in the time that it took someone to blink, the boy was off and already behind Gaara launching his fist at his enemy's face.

Everyone in the room who hadn't obtained the rank of jonin in their respective villages were shocked with the speed that Lee could move at, even Neji the boy who thought that it was fate for Lee to be the dead last proved at this moment that He was faster than himself without his weights on.

Though no one in the room was more surprised that Lee could move so fast than the red headed boy who was facing this speed demon himself as he had never battled someone before who was so fast and he wondered if his opponent was holding back even more.

These thoughts were quickly snuffed out by the Ichibi that was sealed inside of Gaara making the boy feel the bloodlust of the demon and make him want to kill even more.

The speed coming from Lee was just too much for Gaara and the end result was the green spandex wearing boy landed a powerful heel kick on the top of Gaara's head.

Shock was the only thing that could be described on the faces of the sensei of Gaara along with the Ichibi container's two siblings as this was the first time that they had seen someone make it past Shukaku's defences and land a quality hit on Gaara and it was unnerving them to say the least.

It was then that Lee got the upper hand over Gaara as the speed that lee was using to fuel his punches and kicks was just too great of a speed for Gaara to keep up with and it made the boy panic, and you know what it is like when you trap a predator in a corner, It's going to fight back even harder than before.

For Lee who was having the time of his life during this fight noticed that there was some sand that was falling off of his opponent and it was then revealed that there was a layer of sand that Gaara used on his body as a further protection if the Shukaku defence failed to protect its jinchuuriki.

The reason as to why the sand siblings and their sensei were worried as the only reason for Gaara using the shield of sand which was taxing on his stamina and chakra; for Gaara to use this technique meant that he was getting serious which usually meant that he was going to play with his enemy before killing them in a brutal way with his sand.

Seeing that all of his attacks were now going to do even less damage now that Gaara had activated his **Sunaton: Sand Release: Suna no Yoroi (Sand Release: Sand Armour) **and this was something that made Lee realise that he was going to have to deliver some severe damage if he wanted to this match. There was only one word running through the mind of Lee as he looked at Gaara. _Lotus._

Seeing that Lee was undoing the bandages on his arms, Gai instantly realised what his student was planning on doing and smiled internally as he was proud with the decision making as he knew that there were just some situations that you had to go all out unless you were planning on losing your life.

Launching a kick in the exact same motion that the one year genin used on the Uchiha clan heir to prepare him for the lotus before his sensei's summon interrupted him but now there was no turtle to prevent him from landing his attack.

Wrapping the bandages from his forearms around the body of Gaara, Lee was confident that his attack was going to land and he was right as he called out the name of his technique. "**Goken: Omote Renge! (Strong Fist: Front Lotus!)" **Lee called out as he drilled Gaara into the ground in a similar move to that of a pile driver move.

The thing was, was though that the technique that Lee had just used on Gaara was not one that came without consequences and that was why Lee was panting on one knee trying to regain his breath after having opened one of the eight celestial gates.

That was why it made it the perfect opportunity for Gaara, who had substituted himself with his **Sunaton: Suna Bunshin no Jutsu (Sand Release: Sand Clone Jutsu) **and prepared to use his **Sunaton: Sabaku Kyu (Sand Release: Sand Binding Coffin) **on the downed ninja to win the match.

It was finally time that Gaara got serious as he sent his chakra through the sand that was nearby and made the injured lee get sent back with some serious force into the wall which made him split out some blood and cry out in pain.

It took a while for Lee a while for him to recover from those injuries enough but that all changed when the boy had a flashback in remembrance of all of the hard training that he had done to get where he was and now with that vigour, Lee didn't want all of the hard work that he had done to go to waste.

When the green spandex wearing genin placed his hands in a cross position on top of his chest, Kakashi instantly knew what the boy was planning to do and abruptly turned his attention to Gai and the two got into a rather heated conversation about how the technique that Lee was just about to use was one that was forbidden and that there was a good chance that Lee could lose his life when he used this technique.

When the sensei of two of the most power hungry kids in the world said this, the curiosity of both Naruto and Sasuke was piqued and their attention was taken away from whatever previously had their attention and they now had their eyes focused on Lee to see what his supposedly forbidden technique was and whether or not they could learn it.

"Third gate: the gate of life: OPEN!" Lee shouted as his body now went completely red from all of the strain that he was feeling thanks to opening some of the body's celestial gates.

If what was happening to Lee now was bad enough, well then you were in for a shock when his faced turned even redder as he shouted out about how he was opening the fourth gate, the gate of harm.

When that happened, Lee rocketed off the ground at speeds that even a lot of jonin couldn't keep up with and brutally attack Gaara which made the red headed boy fly off the ground at blistering speeds, so fast that not even his sand which was his primary form of defence could keep up with the speed that Lee was hitting him with.

Punching him so fast that it made the boy rocket off of his fist, Lee used his incredible speed to get around to the other side of the room to launch his next powerful attack at his enemy.

"This is the end!" Lee shouted as he saw the sand armour that Gaara was wearing coming off and he decided that it was time to end this fight as his body wouldn't be able to hold out any longer. "5th Gate: Gate of Limit: Open!" Lee shouted as veins were coming highly pronounced all over his body as he launched his final attack.

That attack was the **Goken: Ura Renge (Strong Fist: Reverse Lotus) **which was a taijutsu attack that wrapped the enemy up in his bandages, delivered several blows before throwing them to the ground, pulling them back up and delivering a large punch to the chest of the enemy before finally finishing them off with a pile driving manoeuvre. It was also the strongest move in the arsenal of Rock Lee.

And this was what Lee exactly did as Gaara didn't have much time to react to all of the moves that Lee was using and was grateful that Lee had a moment's hesitation so that he could use his **Sunaton: Suna Bunshin no Jutsu (Sand Release: Sand Clone Jutsu) **to avoid the culmination of the green spandex wearing ninja's attack.

It was then that Lee shouted out in pain as he felt the effects of opening five of the eight celestial gates much to the horror of everyone watching as they thought that Lee would die since Kakashi Hatake had told them that there was a good chance of that happening.

Unlike everyone from Konoha who were concerned for Rock Lee who was heavily injured, all of the people who were born from the village hidden in the sand were all concerned, even Kankuro and Baki who rarely showed their emotions were all worried for the youngest son of the Yondaime Kazekage who had taken serious damage from the Konoha genin's attack.

It was that the fears of Baki, Kankuro and Temari were distinguished as they were now relieved as there was some sand coming out of the spot in which Lee had piledrived Gaara into the ground and it instantly rapped around Lee's left arm and left leg.

It was in this split second that Shino, the boy from the Aburame clan realised what was about to happen to the green spandex wearing ninja as he and the rest of his teammates had seen the technique that Gaara was about to call out where it killed all three of those ninjas from the land of rain.

"**Sunaton: Sabaku Kyu (Sand Release: Sand Binding Coffin)**" the red haired ninja from the hidden sand village called out as the sand that was surrounding half of Lee's limbs suddenly compressed and crushed the appendages of Lee which made the boy scream out in pain.

Not being satisfied with having just ruined the boy's chances of being a shinobi, Gaara took it upon himself to end the boy's life by using the same jutsu that he had just used on Lee once again.

Seeing that the match was over for his student and that the only thing that could come out of the match was death for his prized pupil, Maito Gai knew that he had to intervene in the match less he wanted his student to die at the tender age of 14.

With having multiple cracks coming all over his body which was a sign that his inner armour was at its weakest point, Gaara was forced to view painful memories of his uncle who he was reminded of when Gai stepped into the arena on the behalf of his student.

"Why… why did you save him?" Gaara questioned as he wondered why someone would do that for someone else when he had had no one even show him the slightest form of compassion, even his uncle on his death bed told Gaara that it was all just a farce and that he actually hated him since he was the reason that his big sister was now dead.

"He is someone precious to me." Gai stated in a serious tone of voice that made Gaara just look in confusion before masking his emotions so that no one could get a read on the red haired boy as to what he was thinking inside of his head.

_Words that Gaara can't comprehend _Baki thought to himself as watched carefully at his student to see what he would do as he was concerned as to whether or not something bad would happen concerning the Shukaku sealed inside of him.

Seeing that there was an end to the match with the winner being the kid from the sand village; Hayate spoke up gaining the attention of everyone in the room as he needed to announce the winner of the match. "Winner of the match is Gaara Sabaku *cough*" Hayate said to which the medical ninjas took this as their hint to come into the room and make sure that Lee was okay.

It was then that the chief medical ninja of the group spoke up gaining the attention of Gai who was situated right next to his student, trying to be as supportive as possible despite knowing that the future of his student looked grim. "You're his jonin instructor right..?" when the man received a nod from Gai, he continued speaking. "Well could you please come over here?" the man asked although it was more of a demand rather than a question.

Obliging to the man whose job it was to heal injured ninjas, Gai headed over to him so that they could talk in private. It was then that the doctor got to the part of his job that he hated the most. It was the part when he told the people close to is patients what type of injuries that they were suffering from.

"His breathing is slightly troubled but that will heal well, the thing is though is that he has shattered all of the bones and torn all of the muscles in his limbs. Now we could do something to fix all of those injuries but it is here where his problems truly begin.

The damage to his arm and leg where he was attacked his severe. With his body, he will never be a ninja again." This statement alone from the doctor was enough to shell shock Gai to the very core as there was just no way that he could believe that Lee would never be able to be a ninja again.

It was then that Kakashi used a little bit of his chakra to get down next to Gai and offered what he thought were some comforting words to the man who would no longer be able to wear his green spandex for a year.

"I'm sorry Gai, I said some really arrogant things to you earlier about forbidden jutsus but when I think about it, if I was in your position, I probably wouldn't have been able to stop them from using a forbidden jutsu either." Having gotten no response to what he said, Kakashi continued on, despite knowing that what he had to say would probably sound harsh.

"Come on Gai, were in the way for the next match, we have to go to the stands." Kakashi tried to say in the nicest way possible.

Sighing, the man wearing green spandex which contradicted with his current attitude spoke up. "Yeah…" The elite jonin stated before he too used the **Ninpou: Shunshin no Jutsu (Ninja Arts: Body Flicker no Jutsu) **to leave the stands so that Hayate could call ahead the next match.

**With Shikamaru**

It was then that the normally lazy boy Shikamaru who was not normally annoyed got quite annoyed when his name came up on the screen. What made his worse was the fact that he had to battle a girl.

On the board up ahead, there were the names Shikamaru Nara vs. Temari Sabaku. Realising that it was finally her time to have her match, the sandy blonde haired girl jumped up, pulled her fan out and glided down to the arena where she would face off against the ninja from the shadow wielding clan.

In contrast to the enthusiasm that was shown by the daughter of the current Yondaime Kazekage, Shikamaru Nara was dismayed with the fact that he had to fight a woman but in the end he decided that he would do it, only for the sake of not losing to a girl.

Walking down the stairs, the heir to the Nara clan throne stood opposite Temari so that he could start the match where his chauvinistic pride as a boy didn't allow him to lose to a woman.

The only thing that the proctor of this match said was begin and that was that, the match between the two smart ninjas was underway. Using the time that he stalled for when walking down the stairs which the boy who had his hair in a pony-tail actually used that time to take in his surroundings and make up a strategy that would allow him to win without exerting as much effort as possible.

With all of the debris in the room thanks to the previous match combined with the fact that there was a lot of natural light coming into the room making quite a lot of shadows gave the boy an easy access into the next round in his mind as the sand ninja that he was facing knew nothing about his clan's jutsus.

When the match started, Shikamaru allowed Temari to make the first move to see how he would have to counter for his plan to work. In the end it was fairly easy for him to make up a plan to win as Temari had just used her fan to make a wind ninjutsu that sent a blast of air with a slight cutting ability which he dodged with conveniently landed under the overhang of the balcony which provided him with the perfect place to use his jutsu.

"**Nara Hijutsu: Kage Mane no Jutsu (Nara Clan Secret Jutsu: Shadow Possession Jutsu)**" The lazy ninja called out in a bored fashion as Temari waited for the jutsu that Shikamaru was using to happen, little did she know that it was already working and before she knew it, she felt her body lock up as she tried to figure out what it was that made her body feel paralysed.

It was the that Shikamaru walked out from his position and slowly pulled out a kunai from his pocket as he watched how the struggling Temari did her best to break free from his jutsu.

Seeing that her movements were mimicking the boy in front, she realised that he had pulled out a kunai from his pocket, the sandy blonde haired ninja was cursing herself as she over relied on her fan and was arrogant to think that she didn't need any other form of weaponry on her body to use since she had her ninja fan to use as a defence.

It was then that Shikamaru threw the kunai that was in his hand into the thigh of Temari which made the girl grunt heavily as she was feeling a lot of pain and it was only the words of Shikamaru that made her snap out of her pain induced tunnel vision.

"I suggest you give up or you will be suffering more of those." The lazy ninja stated in a tone that indicating how bored he was with this fight which made Temari all the more angrier as she thought that he was thinking of her as nothing but waste of space.

This combined with the fact that she had to give up in front of her two brothers along with her sensei made Temari growl out in anger as she couldn't be more embarrassed if she tried and the worse fact was that she hadn't changed his thought of fighting women was a chore and nothing more, nothing less.

"I forfeit" Temari said in a resigned tone of voice as she knew that she was never going to hear the end of it from Kankuro and she was just not sure what her other brother would do but one thing that this experience did for her was that it gave the teenager a new vigour to train even harder than before so that she couldn't be embarrassed like this again, because for the Kazekage's daughter, this was highly unacceptable and she wasn't going to stand for it.

**With Kankuro**

It goes without saying that witnessing the fact that his big sister was someone who wasn't going to be making it to the final round of the chunin exams made the boy truly shocked as he certainly didn't expect for his nee-san to lose to some fresh genin 6 months into his career as a ninja.

Though that feeling of shock wore over as he noticed that the teenager in question was slowly walking up the stairs with her head hanging down; not wanting to make eye contact with anyone from Suna as she was sure they would look at her with disappointment marring their faces.

It was then that the silence that was in the spot where team Baki was stopped when the middle child of the Sabaku family erupted into copious amounts of laughter. "Hahahahaha you suck Temari! You lost to some newbie pacifist from the leaf village. Hahahaha wait until everyone hears how the desert princess lost to a rookie genin ahahahaha." The boy with "war paint" on his face laughed as he wanted to see the look on the look on Temari's face.

This was not the best idea though for the genin from Suna as his sister was not in a stable mind in which she might have had a thought along the lines of being compassionate but that was quickly snuffed out thanks to the anger coursing through her system thanks to her defeat at the hands of the Nara clan heir.

Using her fan which she didn't get to use anywhere near as much as she had hoped to in her match, she used the large metal folding fan to swipe a hard blow to her brother and make him go flying down to the match floor.

The coincidence about this was that when Kankuro got his bearings back from the hit, he realised that on the board, there was his name and it said that he was up against one of those ninjas that were attempting to spy on him and the rest of his team during the second part of the exam.

grinning as the kid that he was going to go up against was one that was scared of team Sabaku, Kankuro thought that he had this in the bag but after witnessing the match that his sister had just had, the puppet ninja had decided that he would go full out from the start and not allow for any surprises to happen.

With his opponent standing in front of him looking as if he was ready to start the match the Sabaku teen looked towards Hayate who was the proctor of the match as if asking the silent question of: _when are you going to start this match?_

It was as if the special jonin from Konoha saw this silent question from Kankuro and looked over towards the genin from Konoha and asked him whether he was ready. There was a slight pause in the statement coming from the chunin hopeful but that was quickly masked and put on a determined front and waited for Hayate to call the match to go ahead.

"Very well then *cough* the match between Kankuro Sabaku and Kiba Inuzuka will *cough* now begin." The special jonin called out to which Kiba made the first move by using a coordinating assault on Kankuro with the help of his canine partner Akamaru.

Throwing a smoke bomb on the ground right in front of Kankuro, Kiba the heir of the Inuzuka clan and his trusty partner by his side as the duo double teamed the ninja with the weird wrappings on his back.

Jumping out of the smoke so that he could see what was going to happen as that smoke was obscuring his vision. The one thing that Kankuro noticed when he came out of the smoke was that there was a white dog that was latched hard onto his arm.

Thanking that it was the puppet and not his actual flesh which would be quite painful, the boy from Sunagakure used his chakra threads which were attached to his puppet to rapidly changed their hands which caught Akamaru in a trap hold with the other hand of the puppet had a hole in his hand in which a blade pooped out and dripped poison, making Akamaru whimper since he didn't want to die.

"You might want to give up kid or otherwise your friend here will die." Kankuro stated to the canine based ninja who could only growl as he tried to think of a way to get out of this dicey situation and it was then that the member of the Inuzuka clan realised that he did have a way to get Akamaru out of the situation he was in and what that involved was a soldier pill.

Pulling one out of his pocket, Kiba flicked the soldier pill in the direction of Akamaru to which the puppy obliged his master with a thankful yelp and swallowed the pill which made the fur on the dog turn from white to vibrant red in a matter of seconds.

The thing was though, had this been some kind of clone which weren't as tough, the dog would have been able to break through all of restraints holding Akamaru back but because it was a puppet which was made of much stronger materials meant that the dog couldn't break out of his hold.

What he did do though was force Kankuro out of the bandages that he wrapped himself in which made everyone realise that the real Kankuro was a ninja who was a puppet jutsu user and that the thing holding Akamaru was actually a puppet.

This was proven true as the puppet's paint and design which made the thing look like Kankuro himself started to chip away and reveal the wooden doll underneath.

Seeing that he had just dodge a bullet there from there on Kankuro made the split second decision in that he wouldn't take any more chances with this match and decided to go in for the kill on the puppy which would make the match much easier since it would then be one on one.

Seeing that what he had tried to do didn't work and that his enemy was now going to kill Akamaru, Kiba quickly called out as he didn't want his best friend to die. "Wait, I'll forfeit as long as you promise to let Akamaru go." Kiba called out to his enemy who stopped the poisoned blade that was aimed directly at the red dog and turned his head to Kiba to see whether or not he would actually go through with it and forfeit.

Giving a nod of the head, Kiba sighed in relief as he didn't know what he would have done without Akamaru right by his side, Kiba spoke up to Hayate. "Alright then, proctor I give up." Kiba said with a reluctant sigh as he spoke to Hayate before then changing to Kankuro so that he could get Akamaru back.

"Now, hand over Akamaru." Kiba said in a not so nice tone as he hated having to forfeit but in the end decided that it was for the best and that if he had this chance another time, he would do exactly what he had just done time and time again.

Having had his sister humiliated by that Konoha genin, Kankuro decided that he wanted to get back some pride for Sunagakure and replied in a fashion that broadcasted his thoughts. "Nah, I don't think I will. Little boy, didn't they ever teach you that Lying is a core part of being a shinobi?" the middle child of the current Kazekage questioned in a rhetorical tone of voice before turning his head back down to the dog in his puppet's arms that was struggling trying to get free.

With a flick of the wrists and a little bit of added chakra, the blade that was in the puppet came out a rather slow speed as Kankuro wanted to toy with the emotions of Kiba but before the blade could connect with the fur of the dog, there was a sword of some kind that was blocking the blade and then realised that the proctor of the match was holding his blade so that the sword couldn't make contact with Akamaru.

"The winner of this match is Kankuro Sabaku by his opponent forfeiting. There is no need to cause unnecessary death." Hayate quietly stated before using some chakra in combination with his sword to push the puppet away and break the hold that the sand Nin had on the canine. "I suggest you go back to your sensei, sand ninja as your match is now over." Hayate stated to which Kankuro obliged and walked up the stairs to his sensei, older sister and younger brother.

Not wanting to cause any more trouble as the incident that he had just created with the attempted killing of one the Inuzuka clan heir's ninja dog partner, Kankuro just walked up to where his team was and waited for the Sandaime Hokage to speak up as there was only one competitor left.

Before that could happen though, both Baki and Temari congratulated the middle child of the current Kazekage on his good performance in the match although Baki was saying that it would have been great if he had not given away that he was a puppeteer.

**With Hiruzen**

Realising that all of the matches were done and that there was no more to come with the Aburame clan child still having not yet fought, he made a motion which Hayate saw and nodded. "The chunin exams second round have now been completed with Shino Aburame *cough* going through to the third round since he didn't have to fight *cough* anyone which was just the luck of the draw." Hayate stated before allowing his dictator to continue off where he took over.

"As I told you before, your matches will be seen by everybody. Each of you will fight to represent the strengths of your country. I would like to show you all off without any injuries so that you can fully do your country proud, that's why this will take place one month from now.

This break will be for say preparations." It was at this point that the Hokage stared directly at the genin in front of him and noticed that the only two people who didn't flinch or back down in this staring exercise were Naruto and Gaara, the two people he thought that had the most amount of chances to win the tournament.

"In other words, In addition to informing of all of the various lords and nobles about the tournament, this is the time that is needed to arrange the gathering of this event and this is also preparation time for the students." The aging Hokage once again went into one of his lectures that seemed to ramble on which all of higher ranked people in Konoha knew that the man tended to do.

It was then that Kankuro, the brother of the one tailed demon jinchuuriki spoke up annoyed with the rambling of the old man in front of him. Not perturbed by the lack of respect that he was getting from foreign genin, Hiruzen Sarutobi replied to the obvious confusion of Kankuro Sabaku.

"This is the time period where you calculate your chances of winning by analysing the data you accumulated during the trial competition. The battles up to now had you fight as if you were in an actual combat situation with the assumption of fighting an unknown opponent.

However the final will not be like this, there are those that have showed all that they can do" it was at this point that Naruto mentally nodded as he fell into this category since he had used all of his jutsus on Tenten barring one that did nothing spectacularly different from the ones that he had.

"There are those who have competed and are badly injured against a strong opponent. To make everything fair, the one month should be used to make it so that everyone is on a level playing field when the finals come.

Well I'd like to dismiss you all but before that can happen; there is something that must happen before I can allow you to go." Hiruzen said to the chunin hopefuls in front of him which was the queue for another special jonin to come over with her role in the final exam before the final round.

That person was none other than Anko Mitarashi. "There are pieces of paper inside of this box which will determine who you will be battling in the final round of the tournament so that you know how to prepare for your match gaki's."

It was then that Anko questioned the kids to rattle off what numbers they had gotten when they put their hands in the cube. What this did was that it showed who would be paired up against whom.

The end result was that the first match of the tournament was none other than the heir of the Uzumaki clan was going up against the heir of the Nara clan.

What this also opened the hat on was who Shino's first opponent for the final round would be. The person he was going up against was none other than the middle child of the current Kazekage Kankuro Sabaku. It was also decided that the winner of this match would have to face off against Neji Hyuga, the prodigy from the branch clan as there was an odd number of participants.

With the other two matches being both boy vs. boy matches, it was only fair that the one of the other matches was girl vs. girl and that meant that Ino Yamanaka would be up against Hinata Hyuga, the heiress of the most influential clan inside of Konoha.

The final match of the tournament though was one that would bring a lot of people to Konoha just to watch the match as the two people combatting could not of come from higher lineage from their respective villages as one child was the son of the current Kazekage and his opponent was someone who was the descendant of one of the two people responsible for the founding of the village hidden in the leaves.

Seeing that all of the genin in front of him were either looking intently at the tournament placing's that Ibiki Morino was showing in front of them or were already thinking of a plan of attack for their next match which was in a month's time, Hiruzen spoke up to the group of ninjas in front of him.

"Well then, you're free to start strategizing or resting depending on what you like. With this, I will dismiss you all unless some of you have any questions?" Hiruzen asked to the chunin hopefuls in front of him who were tired from their matches.

There was indeed one kid who had a question for the Sandaime Hokage and it was ironic as that person was the smartest person inside the room was asking for an answer. "Since this is a tournament, it would mean that there is only one winner right? That would mean that only one person can become a chunin right?" Shikamaru questioned as what he had deduced made it seem awfully hard to get the rank of chunin and just made him think that it wasn't worth the effort.

Realising that Shikamaru was right in his assumptions, the Hokage of Konoha decided to correct him. "No, that's not quite right. There will be numerous judges including but not limited to me, the Kazekage and other various lords of minor towns and lands who will be deciding whether or not you have the necessary qualifications to obtain the rank of chunin.

Everyone has the possibility of becoming a chunin even if they lose their first match, as long as they show the skills needed of becoming a chunin, they will obtain the rank. The only point of winning matches is to have more chances of showing off that you're chunin ninja material as well as the prize money that comes with winning." Hiruzen lectured to the genin in front of him.

It was at that time in the conversation that Naruto Uzumaki, the son of the fourth Hokage spoke up. "That means that there is a possibility of everyone becoming a chunin right?" the sun kissed blonde haired boy questioned to the man that time was putting a distance between the two.

Impressed by the analytical abilities of who he considered his surrogate grandson which had gone from being absolutely pathetic to being a bit above average for his age with the only people from his year better than him being Shino, Shikamaru and with him being on equal terms with Sasuke Uchiha; getting rid of these thoughts, Sarutobi answered Naruto's question.

"Yes, but there is also the possibility that none of you will become a chunin." Hiruzen stated in a serious tone which made all of the genin in front of him take notice. "Well then, thanks for all of the inspiring performances; the effort you exerted will make your village proud to have you among their forces. You are all dismissed until a month from now." Hiruzen said before he disappeared from the room using a basic C-rank jutsu called the **Ninpou: Shunshin no Jutsu (Ninja Arts: Body Flicker no Jutsu.)**

For Naruto, he might have stayed back with his teammates if the only person in the team that he liked who was his sensei was there, but because of the fact that Orochimaru did something to Sasuke during the forest, Naruto knew that Sasuke was going to get a check-up at the hospital and needed to have Kakashi there to guard him in case Orochimaru would try something again.

With Naruto's only teammate who was nearby being the girl who he had had a falling out with, Naruto quickly bailed from the room as he didn't want to spend all of his time which he could be using to prepare himself for the finals but would instead have to stand there and listen to Sakura moan on and on about whether or not her Sasuke-kun would be alright.

Having found a map of the forest surrounding him, Naruto saw that the easiest way to get from the tower back to Konoha was to follow the river which would lead straight into Konoha.

Because of the fact that there was only one thing that was on the mind of the blonde haired boy, Naruto forgot to think that he had a red haired "girlfriend" who would be out of the forest to look for and spend some time with.

After what seemed like forever, Naruto got back to his apartment and lying on his bed was the reason as to why he forgot about Karin. It was because now that Naruto had made it to the final round of the chunin exams, he got to become a member of the snake clan; this was something that he had always wanted to do ever since finding out about the clan the night that Shakudo-sama came into his room and told him about the clan.

The thing that made Naruto slightly relieved was that right there on his bed was the only talking snake from the clan that he had come into contact with which would make the whole ordeal that much easier although Shakudo, who was sitting on his bed was struggling to fit all of her coiled body onto the bed as she had just had a growth spurt recently and was five times the size of which she was when Naruto met her for the first time.

"Good afternoon Naruto-kun." The female snake hissed although it was not in a tone that made Naruto weary of her as he had spoken to the snake on a few occasions and none of those did she come across off as the violent killer except when she didn't know who Naruto was but Naruto knew that she wouldn't harm him.

That was why he gave her a large smile as this was the first living being that he had really formed a bond worth having with someone apart from the ramen store owners who had left Konoha and the Sandaime Hokage who he was hardly seeing anyway apart from when he went to pick up his missions.

"Good morning Shakudo-oneesama." Naruto called out to the snake which just tilted its head showing that she was curious as to why Naruto was calling her his big sister but then remembered from what her father had told her about his childhood and that he latched onto people quickly.

Slithering her way over to Naruto's body, Shakudo wrapped her form around Naruto and told him to close his eyes as she was doing something that would allow him to train in complete privacy for the month. The last thing that was said in the room of Naruto was "**Fuuinjutsu: Gyaku Kuchiyose no Jutsu (Sealing Arts: Reverse Summoning Jutsu.)**"

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><p><strong>Chapter has been redone so that the ending is better and not as many mistakes.<strong>


	17. One without a permanent scar

**Author's note: Sorry to all of those who noticed my mistake in the last chapter but that match is going to be Hinata vs Ino for those that want to know. **

**I am more impatient than I am lazy which is saying something (If I ask someone to get me something to eat when I'm hungry and they get it yourself, I won't eat and just stay hungry).**

**That's why at 11:30 pm when I finished writing the chapter, I wanted to upload it the moment that I finished it and didn't even bother proof reading it. So that's why the chapter was riddled with grammatical errors.**

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><p>The first thing that Naruto noticed when he opened his eyes after Shakudo told him that he was allowed to was that the area that he was in was an area that was totally different from the one that he was just in moments ago.<p>

Seeing that there was an incredible amount of confusion on the face of her future summoner, Shakudo decided to inform Naruto of where exactly they were. "Naruto-kun, this place is called Mt. Myobushi which is the place that all members of the snake clan live." Shakudo lectured as she knew that Naruto was new to this place and would not know a thing about it.

"There a more than just one kind of snake as well Naruto-kun, at the basin of the mountain; this is where all of the water snakes live. If you have a water affinity or want to learn something else water related, that is the place that you will go to learn whatever it is you want." Shakudo said to Naruto to which the boy rapidly nodded, willing to take in any bit of information.

Over the other side of the hill, that is the place where it is a desert which is the place where all of the tracking abilities of the snake clan are taught as they have to navigate through the desert, the snakes that live there are the vipers and are also quite smart in comparison to other snakes." The purple rattlesnake said to the boy walking aside of her.

"To your left where the jungle is where you will find all of our anaconda species of the clan which is the place where you will find the interrogation specialists as they squeeze the life out their victim slowly and keeping them on the edge of death without actually killing them and making feel a lot of pain." At this point in the explanation Naruto subconsciously walked a little bit away from them as he could handle killing his enemies but he couldn't handle torturing them.

"This is also the branch of the clan in which my father, the boss of the snake clan who you will refer to as Manda-sama hails from." Shakudo said to Naruto who could only nod in fear as he was somewhat hesitant about meeting the leader of the clan if he was a part of the branch which tortured people.

"To the right of where we are is where the death adder's branch live which is the branch that is the assassinators of the clan are and they are called the death adder branch which is the group of snakes that specialise in assassination.

Getting to the end of this lecture, a bit above the water snakes is where the main fighters of the clan are and they are the Cobra branch which generally specialise in large scale fighting. The reason why they're above the water snakes is because so that they have easy access to all other areas of the mountain so that they can defend their home.

Finally above the cobras is the spot where my branch of the clan lives, that is the branch of the rattle snakes which specialise in poison and leading in battles because of the rattle on our tail." Shakudo stated to Naruto who could only nod as he was finding it hard to keep this incoming information in his head on the first go.

"Despite all of our clan having specific abilities in which we specialise in, we all are proficient in every ability that the clan has to offer in case we get caught out in a situation that we don't intend to be in." the purple rattlesnake stated to Naruto who could only nod and he himself made a mental note not to just be good in one area of shinobi combat and to actually be good in all assets of shinobi life.

"Above all of that, there is one final place on the mountain which is the spot where the leader of the clan and his immediate family live (me included) so that the summon king can look over all branches of the clan and protect them from any unwanted intruders as it is the duty of the strongest of snakes to look after the weakest of snakes as a snake protects a snake." Shakudo recited to herself and Naruto who compared that motto to the will of fire and in the end thought that the motto of the snake clan sounded cooler and less lame than the "will of fire" speech that the Sandaime sprouted to him all of the time.

"For now though, what we will be doing is going to see the leader of the clan, my father who wants to meet the newest member of the snake clan." The princess of the snake clan stated to which Naruto could only nod as he didn't know what to expect, the only thing he was sure about was that he was highly nervous.

**Time Skip**

Compared to what he thought it would be like, the actual conversation that Naruto had had with Manda was nowhere near as bad as what he had thought it was going to be.

Sure the giant purple snake was not someone that Naruto thought would be a walk in the park when it came to talking to, but he was a far cry from what all of the Konoha books had portrayed him to be but in the end Naruto put that down to him being associated with Orochimaru who tarnished their name.

As soon as Naruto had had his long talk with the king of all serpents, Manda had told him that before he could start their training, Naruto had to go to and meet the heads of each smaller branch and get to know all members of the clan so that they knew what their new summoner was like as a person.

By the time that Naruto had spent the bare minimum amount of time with each of the branches of the snake clan, the boy had learnt all of the names of the snakes which were quite hard as there were roughly about 20 snakes per branch.

The one thing that Naruto had found out which was a highly secret ability of the clan was that they had the ability to take form as a human being which they only used inside of their village as a way to train their summoners in the snake arts.

This was also the way how the clan gathered information on the human world and it was also the way how infiltrated the human villages and stole things if they needed them to make their summoner a stronger ninja which would make them look better in the eyes of everyone else.

**The next day**

After having been taken to a bed which was of higher class than anything else that he had slept in before, Naruto relished the fact that the snake clan was a civil and high society clan which meant that he got to experience luxuries that he had never had before. The one thing that this did though was give him a desire to make lots of money so that he could have the same things that his clan had instead of living in poverty like he was used to.

The first thing that was on the agenda for the day which was the day that Naruto would start his training regime which would make him strong enough to easily win the chunin exams, Naruto had to sign the contract of the snake clan.

The way how this was done was by drawing enough blood that it could be used as a medium for a brush to write on the scroll that the clan the original close to home after they had the scare of Orochimaru taking it with him when he distanced himself from the clan when he was becoming more and more twisted.

Looking at the scroll in front of him there was a total of seven names that were on the scroll and there were only two that he recognized. They were Orochimaru of the _Densetsu no Sannin_ and the other one was Izuna Uchiha who was the second strongest Uchiha clan member during the time of Madara Uchiha and Hashirama Senju.

From the moment that Naruto had had his visit from Shakudo, the blonde haired boy had poured quite a bit of his time into research on summoning clans and had found out that they were around 1.3 thousand years old and for Naruto, this meant that he was going to become only the eight person to sign this contract in all that time, made him feel great as he finally had something go his way after all of the shit he had gone through in his earlier years.

The moment that Naruto signed the summon contract with his blood, he expected something to happen straight away, thus that was why he was disappointed that nothing happened when he signed the contract.

Seeing the expression on Naruto's face, Manda chuckled to himself as he saw that same expression on the face of Orochimaru when he was Naruto's age. In fact, now that he looked closely at the blonde haired boy in front of him, he could tell that there were a lot of similarities with Naruto and when Orochimaru was Naruto's age.

This was why all of the branch leaders along with Manda had come to the decision that they would change the way that they taught their summoners as they certainly didn't want another basket case like Orochimaru running around with their name getting dragged in the mud.

The way how they planned to rectify that mistake was to instead of just having their human representative bottling up all of their negative emotions as that was what they had told Orochimaru to do and the pressure of doing that was just too big and the explosion of all of those negative thoughts was not something that they wanted to have to deal with again, especially with Naruto having the Kyubi sealed inside of him would only make things much worse.

What they had chosen to do to rectify their mistake in training Orochimaru was that they would allow Naruto to have an insulting sense of humour which would allow him to hopefully get rid of all of his pent up and repressed aggression from the life he had been dealt.

With the musings of everyone having now gone, Naruto know noticed that there was another snake that was standing beside Manda and he had no idea what they were doing.

"What Shakudo-chan either forgot to mention or didn't think was important as it is one of our rather bigger secrets of the clan is that we also have an extra branch from the ones that Shakudo told you about. Now the only reason we are telling you this is because we are putting a lot of trust into you Naruto and you don't want to make us vengeful, because we are very good at what we do." Manda-sama stated to Naruto whilst using some of his highly potent killer intent to make sure that the blonde haired boy knew exactly where he stood in the eyes of the Hebi clan.

"Dug into the mountain is an inner sanctum which the rarest breed of snake, the white snake lives which is the branch of the clan that focuses in medicine and healing. Compared to their being on average 20 snakes per branch, the white snake branch generally only has five snakes in its branch at one time." The king of all serpents stated to Naruto who could only nod and try not to stare at the white snake beside Manda.

"The white snakes specialise in medicine and various other healing arts and since we need to give you a full medical check to see where we need to train you the most, Nagini-baasama here is going to check what training methods we will need to use." Manda stated to Naruto who could only nod.

Despite having huge insecurities when it came to doctors as he had bad experiences with doctors from Konoha, Naruto was a bit hesitant but in the end the thought of not being trained by the snake clan outweighed the fact that he didn't like doctors that much.

It was then that the musings of the Naruto were cut short when Nagini spoke up. "Now hatchling, I am going to need for you to take off the top half of your clothing so that I can start this procedure.

What I will be doing is injecting you with a special poison which will prevent your body from sending any messages of pain to your brain so that you will not feel any pain." Nagini-Baasama stated to Naruto who could only nod as this meant that he wouldn't have to feel any pain apart from the injecting of the poison.

"Now before we can do all of this, we will now go to recovery chambers so that this can go as smoothly as possible." The white snake told Naruto and it was at this time that Manda took the clue that he didn't have to be around for the procedure which would take quite a while and he had other, more pressing things to take care of.

**Time skip**

It was now five minutes after Naruto had taken off of his shirt and was now lying atop of the medical bench where he was going to have his first full body examination because when Karin-chan gave him the examination, she was nowhere near as proficient in the medical ninjutsu as she needed to be to find all of the smaller things inside of Naruto's body that were different from what the majority of humans had.

But now that Nagini was someone who was highly proficient in the art of medicine and she also had the dossier which had all of the information that the snake clan had gathered on Naruto Uzumaki which included the fact that he was the jinchuuriki of the Kyubi no Kitsune, Nagini had decided that it was better for her patient if she just put him fully under and did things when he was unconscious.

"Now Naruto-kun, there have been a change of plans, Since I have only just found that you are a jinchuuriki" at this point in the explanation, Naruto was highly nervous and apprehensive as he wondered what changes him having the Kyubi would make when it came to his body.

"I feel that it is safer for me to just anaesthetise you so that you will go into a forced sleep so that the Kyubi will have less chance of affecting the procedure." The white snake stated to Naruto who could only nod, relieved that the opinion of the snake clan didn't change when they found out about his burden.

With that said, Nagini then went into her explanation of what was going to happen during the examination although quite a lot of it went over his head as the white snake was using medical terms which he had no knowledge of medicine.

The only thing Naruto did get though was that she was going to use her fangs to anaesthetise him and waiting for that to take effect in which she would then use her fangs once again and use some other special medicine so that she could find out everything that was happening inside of his body.

**Four hours later**

After what seemed like a long time for Nagini as she hadn't had to perform a procedure like that in over forty years for when she had to do it for the previous summoner.

The information that Nagini had gathered from Naruto's body was something seriously different from every other human that she had done an examination on a human.

Changing into her human form which was an elegant kimono which framed her body hiding her figure because for a woman her age, it was not a thing that a dignified and mature lady did.

Along with her choice in clothing, Nagini had long silver hair that went down to her shoulder blades which was parted down the middle. The final visual aid that made it known that she was a member of the snake clan was the amber coloured eyes that had a black slit running down the centre of them.

It was then that the boy who was previously unconscious was now starting to wake up and the first thing that he noticed was that there was a pain in his chest and when he looked down he noticed that he had two fang shaped sternum which was the middle bone which the ribs branched off.

After having realised that he had two holes in his sternum which were pretty much healed over, Naruto at this point in time heard a voice that sounded familiar. "Now that you are awake, can you please get dressed so that we can go and visit Manda-sama so that I can deliver my findings to him Naruto-kun? The grandmother figure of the whole clan asked to which Naruto politely nodded and quickly put on his long sleeve shirt and jacket so that he looked presentable for his summon boss.

Once that was done, there was a five minute walk from the cave to the top of the mountain in which Manda lived and did his daily routine of paperwork which made the snake king sometimes wished never was the clan king as that would mean he didn't have to do the paperwork.

When there was a knock on his door, the purple haired man was happy as it gave him an excuse to stop doing the paperwork from the lizard clan which wanted an alliance with them since they were a smaller clan and wanted the protection from a larger one.

Ushering for whoever it was to come in, Manda was even happier to see that it was Naruto and Nagini who came into the room as it meant that he could finally get the chance to test out his future student and see not only how good he was as a shinobi but also where they needed to improve on.

"Now, why don't you two have a seat so that we can go over what Nagini-baasama has found that we either need to take care of or something that would give you an advantage in battle." Manda stated to the two of them and the white snake took this as the hint to start her report.

"It seems that having the Kyubi sealed inside of you has had a profound effect on your body Naruto-kun." Now Naruto already knew this as he had to eat a ton of food in comparison to what all of the other kids his age ate including the Akimichi children. The thing that Naruto did not know though was just how much having the Kyubi inside of him changed his body.

"It turns out Naruto-kun that having the Kyubi sealed inside of you has changed your genetic structure so that you now have a bloodline" Nagini stated as she enjoyed the facial expression Naruto showed which was one of clear surprise as he had no idea about that.

Chuckling, Nagini decided to elaborate on her findings and tell Naruto about his bloodline. "Combining the powerful effects of the Kyubi chakra with your already near bloodline limit heritage from the Uzumaki clan has created the newest body based bloodline." At this point the elder white snake paused to allow this information to sink in for both Manda and Naruto although it was quicker for the information to register in the mind of Manda compared to Naruto who was still feeling the shock of finding out he had a bloodline.

"Yes Naruto, you have a bloodline, it seems that your bone structure is of a much stronger density which makes them able to sustain a lot more damage compared to the average human." This statement from Nagini was something that Naruto decided to question as he thought that his leg broke quite quickly when he was in Kusagakure and decided to tell Nagini about this.

"But when I was in Kusagakure, my enemy used the **Doton: Doryudan no Jutsu (Earth Release: Earth Dragon Bullet Jutsu)** and I unintentionally got hit by one of the bullets of rock, it broke my leg on impact and it took ages to heal." Naruto stated as he still didn't truly believe that he had a bloodline.

This was something that made the snake king doubt Nagini a slight bit but he had more trust in her than he did Naruto and if she said that Naruto had a bloodline, then he did and nothing was going to change that.

Not showing any sign of annoyance at what Naruto had said as it was a valid statement, but she had evidence to disprove any claim that Naruto made along the lines that he didn't have a bloodline.

"Naruto, has your intake of food changed in recent times as in are you ingesting more nutritious and substances that have higher amounts of calcium inside of them?" Nagini asked as she guessed that this was the major cause of what his body was saying when it stated that it had gone under a massive change recently.

It was then that the fact that what Nagini was saying to him dawned on him as he had started eating much better things for his body after he had gone to Karin-chan and asked her on a date. "Oh sorry Nagini-baasama, yes, my diet has changed a lot recently as before, I was barred going into the library because of the Kyubi sealed inside of me out of fear of helping the demon get stronger and during that time I was very stupid and didn't have a good head on my shoulders until Shakudo-oneesama set me straight." The blonde haired boy admitted to the group who could only nod at the information because humans were such a fickle race that could change at the drop of the hat.

For Manda, he was happy for Naruto to have already taken an instant liking to his daughter and the future leader of the clan as he knew that a close bond between clan leader and summoner for them to work together flawlessly.

Seeing that it was time for her to continue on what she was talking about before, Nagini started speaking. "The other thing that contributes to the fact that you have a bloodline is that your muscles are set up differently.

Instead of your body having both an aerobic and anaerobic cardiovascular system to get the performance of your muscles working at high levels, you instead have a massively enhanced anaerobic cardiovascular system which allowed to keep the high intensity muscle movements going for as long as the anaerobic system." The white snake reported to Manda who could only gape (with control over his facial expressions) at what Nagini had just said because for a human, having something like that was just unheard of.

This was also something that explained the reason as to why Naruto had a large amount of stamina. If the purple haired man that all of this was bad enough, well than the next thing that Manda heard was enough to make him wonder just how prominent this bloodline would become in the future.

The only thing that Naruto had uncovered from Nagini's medical speech was the fact that he could work his muscles harder for longer and that they would prefer him to do it that way to build them up to peak physical form.

All this talk about the anaerobic system and how good Naruto's was showed Manda just how much potential he had in the snake arts as to be a good snake summoner, you needed to be good in your ambushes and having a bloodline with abilities in the anaerobic department made Naruto have the potential to be the best snake summoner that they had ever had.

"Because of the fact that you have been exposed to the Kyubi from such a young age, the beast's chakra has made it so that you have a higher immune system compared to everyone else by sending small poisons into your body via your appendix at irregular times so that if you do go up against a poison later on in life, you will not feel as much of the effects as the poison wants you to feel.

Finally, the last component of your bloodline Naruto-kun is that you have a much better waste disposal system compared to all other humans. Instead of just storing all of the things that aren't necessarily needed inside of your body, the Kyubi has changed it so that your body forcibly eject anything and everything outside of your body so that it can perform at the highest standard all the time.

What this means is that anything that you eat that doesn't have a positive effect on your body, then it will be forcibly ejected out of anal passage." As Nagini said this, this was something that Naruto instantly caught onto and discovered that it meant that he would have to go to the toilet on a lot of occasions.

It was then that there was a silence that dawned in the room as everyone processed before Manda asked Nagini what Naruto's skills were as a shinobi so that he could know what he was going to have to do to make Naruto be the best he could possibly be.

"Right Manda-sama, Naruto-kun here has a wind elemental affinity and going by the control he had in his chakra coils shows that he is at low-intermediate level compared to that of the Nidaime Kazekage who was our last wind element user." The last bit of information was more for Naruto rather than Manda although the clan head was only a hatchling when the Nidaime Kazekage was an adult so he may not have remembered the man.

For Naruto Uzumaki, he was quite nervous having all of his shinobi skills laid out there in the open as he wasn't sure whether he was good enough to be a member of the clan as while skills wasn't essential as it could be built over time but he couldn't make the clan look bad or they would look down at him.

"He could obviously become a great swordsman with the combination of his wind affinity with a single bladed chokuto considering his size and flexibility a with a cylindrical grip which would promote major flexibility in the attacks that he would be able to pull off without a guard which would decrease the weight of the sword so that it would decrease weight allowing him to move faster during combat.

I can see Naruto here becoming a shinobi who favours speed rather than power as he can use his elemental affinity to create a great attacking base for him to launch his future kenjutsu and our other snake arts." Nagini stated as not only was she the head of the white snake branch but she was also Manda's advisor on decisions and was telling him how to prepare the things that Naruto needed for his training.

"Judging by the amount of information in his nervous system about muscle memory, it shows me that the only taijutsu style that Naruto has is the academy taijutsu style" at this point Nagini saw the nervous look on the face of Naruto and decided that it would be good to ease his worries. "Don't worry Naruto-kun, the academy style is a taijutsu style which is a necessary evil for students without an alternative style and it is a style that is meant for branching out and learning better styles later on which means that you should learn our kenjutsu fairly quickly." The elder snake stated in a kind tone which she hoped ease Naruto's conscious.

Indeed it did as Naruto felt relieved that even if he wasn't as good as they might have wanted him to be, he could quickly get up to the level that they set as standard. This also gave Naruto if possible an increased determination to trainer better to get more out of his training sessions so that he wouldn't be considered a weak link for the clan.

"It occurs to me that Naruto will have to bulk up quite a bit in terms of muscle as despite his bloodline getting rid of all of the fat on his body which makes him look like he is very fit, he is still quite underweight for his age/height bracket and needs more muscle on him so that he can effectively make up that he has no taijutsu to rely on and can use his speed to offset as well as improving the speed he can go through his hand seals because at the moment the muscles in his forearms and fingers are the smallest in proportion compared to the rest of his body." Nagini stated pointing out all of Naruto's problems so that Manda could create the perfect training regime to iron out all of those flaws before the final of the chunin exams.

It was a little while later as Manda was busily writing down the finer points of Naruto's training, when he was done he asked for Nagini to take Naruto down to the rattlesnake branch as to get him started on the initiation process of becoming a member of the snake clan.

Obliging to her boss, Nagini took the blonde haired boy with her as she went down to where the daughter of the clan king lived so that they could get Naruto officially a part of the snake clan.

The way that they were going to do this was by getting Naruto to get the customary tattoo on the inside of his right arm embedded with his blood, chakra and chakra from the princess of all snakes to make a truly binding contract.

**With Shakudo**

Hearing that Naruto would be coming to her so that she could begin the true initiation process, Shakudo got everything ready that she would need for the tattooing of Naruto.

It was then that the boy who called her his big sister was dropped off into the room in which she would be piercing the skin of Naruto and injecting some ink into it.

"Naruto-kun, can you please come over here so that we can start the process of you getting your tattoo." Shakudo stated calmly to Naruto who could only blush at seeing the girl who he called his big sister in her human form.

Thankfully for the fact that Shakudo was sitting down on a seat, it made it hard for Naruto to get a good look at her figure which was lucky as she had a good body and would have made Naruto uncomfortable.

Shakudo, someone who had frequently been inside her father's office had seen Nagini-baasama and had taken the woman as her role model and mimicked her in the way that she dressed. Shakudo had long straight purple hair that went down to her shoulder blades and was wearing a tightfitting kimono top that showed off her C-cup breasts.

Getting rid of the thoughts that were running through his mind, Naruto sat down on the bench and pulled his sleeve up just like Shakudo-oneesama asked him to. It was then that Naruto noticed the weird metal object sitting on the bench beside the woman as well as that there was a blood pump for whatever reason.

Getting curious as to what was going to happen Naruto spoke up. "Shakudo-oneesama, what's all this stuff for? Isn't a tattoo just painted on with some special sort of paint?" Naruto asked showing the fact that he was completely clueless as to what was going on.

Chuckling at the naivety that Naruto had inside of him which showed that there was still a bit of the old Naruto in him in which she found adorable even if he looked like he had some sort of brain damage at first glance when he wore his orange jumpsuit, Shakudo chose to reply to the curious boy.

"Naruto, Tattoos are not painted on because the epidermis layer of skin peels off over time, especially when you get an injury; that metal device there is a tattoo gun which will inject the ink inside of your skin to make the tattoo permanent.

For this to be anything other than a regular tattoo, I will need to get enough of your blood to combine it with the ink but to make a proper summoning tattoo, I will also need to use your chakra as well as mine to make it so that every time that you try to summon us, you don't have to always give a sacrifice of blood." Shakudo said to Naruto who could only nod as he wondered how much this was going to hurt as it was a lie for him to say that he wasn't in the slightest bit nervous.

With that done, Shakudo used some alcoholic agent to clean Naruto's skin before finding his vein, inserting the needle and sucked up about 250ml (250ml = 8.5 fluid ounces) of blood.

Once that was done, Shakudo used the tattoo gun which fascinated Naruto a lot as he wanted to know all about it since the first proper person to acknowledge him as a shinobi was obviously so good with the thing in her hands that it made Naruto want to also learn about it so that he could do this to himself as it looked like fun.

The reason as to why Naruto was liking this a lot was because of the fact that since he had the Kyubi sealed inside of his stomach, there were a lot of things that he missed out on and with this being something that his clan did, well Naruto wanted to do it to be just like them because at the moment, they were the closest thing that he had to family.

Just the thought of how he was now a part of the clan made the boy have a giddy shiver go down his spine at that thought. Family, something that was a foreign concept to the blonde haired boy but now that he had a chance to finally have the one thing in life that he wanted more than becoming a Hokage, he was going to his upmost best to keep the feeling of being needed by the clan so that he had more of a chance to form the bonds of a family with the clan.

Now it was time for Naruto to choose what tattoo he wanted to get. "Now Naruto-kun, choosing a tattoo is a very hard process as this is something that is will be permanent on your body and is almost impossible to remove.

Do not worry about it stretching or anything as that is what the chakra is for which will allow it to match your body proportions as you get older. Now there are a lot of choices to choose from when you get a tattoo and generally when people get the larger ones, they hold a significant meaning to the person getting them so it is up to you what you want to have." Shakudo stated to which Naruto thanked her and started looking through the books on offer for designs.

It took Naruto about 20 minutes before he had chosen the tattoo that he wanted to get inscribed onto his arm but he was happy with his choice. Compared to Orochimaru who only got a basic one on his wrist so that he could get back to training as soon as possible, Naruto had gone for the opposite as he wanted something that represented him for who he was and something that he was not going to be ashamed of later on in life.

In the end though, Naruto had picked out a tattoo that he could be proud of. What Naruto had chosen was a snake which was unsurprising but the fact that he had chosen to have a full sleeve tattoo certainly was.

What the blonde haired boy had decided was that he was going to have a coiling Cobra that covered every inch of his arm. The outline of the snake was done in black with the underside of the snake done in a combination of silver, grey and red which the boy thought looked very cool not only in his opinion but also Shakudo's as well.

When the tattoo got to the lower shoulder, it was here that the design changed. With the head of the king cobra now having snaked all the way up his arm, the head of the snake was coming from the back of his shoulder rearing its fangs which was dripping highly toxic purple venom, ready to kill.

All in all the design was one that Naruto was proud for having created in collaboration with Shakudo and the snake was shocked as to how good he was even so far that if he persevered hard enough and put in enough effort to detail, he could make a career out of it.

Finally once the design was done and both Naruto and the purple haired, twenty year old were happy with it, Shakudo started drawing the outline so that they could get started on the tattoo which would take a long time to finish. Little did Naruto know just how long it took to get a tattoo such as a full arm sleeve that also went over all of his right pectoral muscle. He was going to be sitting still for a long time to come.

**With Hinata**

Having made it out of the chunin exams' preliminary round winning her match without the borrowed confidence of her crush did a world of good for increasing the self-worth inside of the young busty girl.

For the first time in her life, the shy young girl from the most powerful clan in all of Konoha realise that she didn't actually need to rely on anyone else as she had done everything herself when it came to getting to where she was at the moment.

The only dampener on her spirit was the fact that her father seemed to think that what she thought was a great accomplishment was actually just a fluke that she had made to the final round of the chunin exams. What this meant was that Hiashi didn't see any reason to teach Hinata about the clan's prized taijutsu style along with their potent ninjutsu moves.

Despite this large setback, Hinata was not someone who was deterred as she wanted to prove herself even more and was becoming more and more confident as time went on about her chances of defeating Ino Yamanaka who had shown nothing special apart from the last move which would be unusable now that she had shorter hair.

What she did for help then was to go to her only female role model and ask for some private tutoring since her only other teammate who had made it to the finals was getting trained by his father in the intricate arts of the Aburame clan.

When Kurenai found that her pseudo-daughter came looking for her so that she could further increase her skills as a ninja in the hopes of beating Ino. What Hinata didn't know was that Kurenai really wanted to win this because she had a small bet going on to see who was the better teacher.

The thing that made the female rage was the fact that Asuma was "too busy" training Shikamaru to bother training Ino which sent the direct message to Kurenai that he thought that no matter how well she trained Hinata, Asuma was confident in the fact that Ino would beat Hinata since Hinata was as shy as a wallflower.

When Kurenai tried to use this as motivation for Hinata, she was surprised with the response that she got as she managed to get the normally placid girl to narrow her eyes a slight degree, which for Hinata was something that spelled out that she was serious to winning her match.

Because of the fact that Hinata now had higher confidence in herself, the training sessions that she had had were much more productive compared to before even if she had only had two after the preliminary final, it was during this time that Kurenai chose to introduce her student to the wonders of genjutsu and how it could greatly enhance her taijutsu.

**With Ino**

For the platinum blonde haired girl, things were not running anywhere near as smooth as what they were for Hinata Hyuga, the reason behind this was because of the contrasting personalities that their senseis had.

For Hinata who had a kind and hands on sensei, she was reaping the rewards when it came to her training but for Ino who had a lazy and apathetic nature about him meant that he blew off Ino's training in favour of a match of shogi with his smartest student.

For a girl like Ino, this was a major rebuttal and she took it harder than what Asuma thought she would considering that she hadn't ever made an attempt to improve her skills as a shinobi before and thought that this was just a fad but for the girl who had seen the realities of the shinobi life in the forest of death, he was wrong.

Despite this setback, Ino was remaining positive as she was confident that she could get some training from her father who was also a Jonin and would know how to train her properly.

That plan though was immediately stuffed down the drain as when the time came that Ino asked her father for training, he had done his best to politely decline as he and his wife had just had their second child, a boy and he was taking up all of the Yamanaka parents' time and when they did have a second spare, they wanted to rest and weren't in the mood to train Ino.

That was why the platinum haired princess was left all on her lonesome when it came to how she was going to train for the chunin exam finals and she was scared because she knew nothing about what to train in. what this moment did for the girl was make her grow up a bit and realise that not everything was as perfect as she had had it being the heiress of the Yamanaka clan.

Thankfully for the purple colour loving girl, she remembered a lesson that her sensei, Iruka Umino had told her and she was thankful for having paid attention that day. _ Remember, no matter how slow it may seem you are improving as a shinobi, there is always something to learn at the library to improve your skills as a ninja._

With that in mind the girl went to the library and picked out a book called _going from genin to chunin _and started reading, wanting to know what she should be training in.

**With Naruto**

Finally after what seemed like forever, the tattoo was done and in reality it costed him 28 hours to get it completed and he wasn't complaining as the thing looked freaking awesome!

Despite having needed some potions from the white snake branch to keep both the tattooer and the person getting the tattoo awake as it was a long and arduous process.

Thanks to having the Kyubi sealed inside of him, the rapid healing features that the giant fox demon provided meant that Naruto no longer had to wait the customary month for the tattoo to stop being itchy and only had to weight about five days or so according to Nagini-baasama.

The fact that he couldn't even scratch the tattoo to get rid of the feeling of irritableness less he wanted all of the work that Shakudo had put into it to be in vein made Naruto very angry although his new control over his emotions made it so that none of this showed.

Because of the fact that most snakes like living in hot weather, Naruto had to constantly wear sunscreen all over his body so that the tattoo could set into his body as best as possible and not fade over time.

What this allowed the boy to do was to train outside and the first thing that he did was to improve his base speed and strength by increasing his muscle mass. What also helped were the special potions that increased the rate of extracting the nutrients out of the food which combined with the healing process of the Kyubi made it so that his muscles would regrow back stronger than ever after each training session.

The reason as to why Naruto was doing this and not doing some other form of training was because of the fact that Manda was still waiting for some of Naruto's equipment to be made so that he could start his training.

Finally after what was five days from the day that Naruto had come to the snake clan thanks to Shakudo, he could finally start the meat of the training with his sensei Manda in the art of kenjutsu.

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><p><strong>Author's Notes:<strong>

**For those of you wondering about the age brackets of Shakudo, Nagini and Manda, well Shakudo is about Anko's age which is roughly 8 years older than Naruto.**

**As for Nagini, she is around the age of the likes of Mito Uzumaki, the two Senju and the two Uchiha brothers. Concerning Manda, he is the same age as Orochimaru, Jiraiya and Tsunade. He is also the same age as Gamabunta and Katsuyu.**


	18. And did you miss me while

**Author's note:**

**Sorry for the short chapter but I couldn't think of anything else to fill in this one without starting the exam as I wanted to leave that for the next chapter. They will go back up to their normal sizing of 10k by the next chapter.**

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><p>There were a lot of words that Naruto had in his now extended vocabulary in which he could use to describe the training that he had undertaken by the snake clan. The first few words that came to mind were words that had similar meanings to anger, tiring, hellish and hard but if he was only allowed to use one word to describe would be pride.<p>

Pride in the fact that no matter how harsh the training was, the blonde haired boy took it in his stride and powered on through trying to get the most out of each training session to become a better ninja and hopefully win the chunin exams or at least give a good enough showing that Naruto could get the promotion he so desperately wanted.

The first thing that Naruto was getting taught how to do was wield a sword. The wooden boken sword that Naruto was using did the job in teaching Naruto how properly move about with a sword in hand at his highest speed which was the speed that he was going to be doing for his shinobi career.

After an 45 minutes of that type of training, Naruto, under the guidance of Manda who was a methodical teacher and wouldn't accept anything less than the best even if it meant that it took longer for the training to get completed instructed Naruto through the offensive and defensive kata's of the style for over three hours every day so that the moves became ingrained into the blue eyed boy's muscle memory.

By the time that that training had been completed, Naruto's muscles and body were screaming for some rest as the new weight of the sword made it so that Naruto's body was feeling very saw after each training session and was thankful when he was allowed to move onto his ninjutsu training which for the chakra powerhouse like he was something that he thought that would be a lot easier for him. He was wrong.

Since Naruto wanted to be the best he could possibly be and Manda not having enough time to properly train Naruto all by himself, the purple haired snake had sought around to get a head of each branch to train Naruto in their respective fields so that he could get a proper education, it was only after the fact that Manda had let slip the teaching conditions that Naruto was subjected to in Konoha did he get the full co-operation of the branch leaders who didn't particularly want to train Naruto as they had done the same for Orochimaru and it was easy to tell what that had turned out into.

Now despite having learnt to stand on water which was hard enough for the blonde haired boy, learning how to not only control your chakra so that you could stand on water but to be also able to launch jutsus just as easily as he could on land, well it was an amusing sight for the water snakes watching Naruto constantly fall into the lake.

The first thing that his teacher had told him about his jutsus so that he could improve them was the fact that he was taking far too long to go through the hand signs and use the jutsu compared to what he needed to have to win a lot of battles as speed was a key aspect in shinobi fights and it didn't just mean how fast you could run in a straight line.

It was how fast you could go from a standing start and reach your maximum fighting speed. It was how fast you could react in case there was something coming from behind and you needed to dodge it unless you wanted to never wake up again. It was how fast you could run on a rough terrain whilst winding in and out of trees whilst being chased and carrying some valuable information.

It was certainly more than just pure straight line speed and this was something that Naruto quickly found out when he battled his sensei as they had a ninjutsu only battle so that he could see where Naruto was at in terms of skill and he made it abundantly clear to Naruto who had to constantly dodge instead of being able to return fire.

Another thing that Naruto learnt the hard way was that he couldn't to the same degree use his ninjutsu whilst moving and had to quickly crush this habit less he wanted to get hit by more blasts of water which were painful.

Though the end result of the training was that Naruto now had all the time in the world in comparison to what it was like to when he used to fire off a ninjutsu. What was next though, Naruto was thankful for the indirect training in how to move on water instead of just being able to stand on top of it.

Manda, seeing the level of proficiency was enough for him not to immediately deny that Naruto was learning the hebi style of kenjutsu which was one of the best styles in the world as many regarded Orochimaru to be on the level of some of the lower ranking members of the seven swordsmen of the mist.

It was during this time that the purple snake decided that he was going to increase Naruto's training via making him do everything that he was doing on land on top of water which would not only increase his chakra control but it would also increase his possible strategies via having a whole new element to work with.

The thing that made Naruto feel as if he was truly progressing with the style was that the blonde haired boy had now moved up from only being able to use a boken to now using a real metal blade.

No longer was he using a glorified stick, Naruto was using a handmade sword to all of the specifications that Nagini had said that would best suit Naruto and was made specifically for a shinobi as it was a very high chakra conductor which allowed Naruto to use his wind element to make the destructive power of his kenjutsu all the more powerful.

Now despite the sword that Naruto had received to which he was not complaining one bit, it was definitely not the sword of Kusanagi which was a famous treasure that nothing else in the clan could replicate the value of but it was still something that would easily surpass the quality of anything made in Konoha and would be on par with the best weapons made in either Kumo or Kiri.

Since Manda thought that Naruto was not making the most out of his training, he had ordered Naruto to go to the cobra branch to learn some of the snake clan's essential jutsus that one was to learn if they wanted to be recognized as a snake summoner by the outside world.

The first jutsu that Naruto learnt was the **Hebi Hijutsu: Sen'eijashu (Snake Clan Secret Jutsu (Hidden Shadow Snake Hands)** which was a jutsu that sent a few snakes from the sleeve which attacked the enemy in a straight and singular motion.

After having learnt the **Fuuinjutsu: Kuchiyose no Jutsu (Sealing Arts: Summoning Jutsu)**, Naruto turned to learning more techniques to do with summoning members of the snake clan.

The jutsu that Naruto had found to learn was the **Hebi Hijutsu: Kuchiyose: Doton: Tsuiga no Jutsu (Snake Clan Secret Jutsu: Summoning: Earth Release: Fanged Pursuit Jutsu.) **this was a jutsu that was similar to the stock standard summoning technique in that the only difference was the summon animal but this used the snakes natural methods of detection to find their prey and appear from the ground in an surprise attack and use their poisonous fangs to either kill or paralyse their enemy.

The best thing about this jutsu was that it was not limited to any specific snake to use it with and that he could use it from a hatchling to using the jutsu in coordination with Manda himself.

It was during this time that Naruto had given his first order to as a summoner to one of the death adder branch snakes which used their skills in assassination for information gathering which shared a lot of the same skills and Naruto had asked the snakes to find as much information as possible about the skills of all of his competitors so that he could find the best way to win without exerting as much energy as he had to.

When Naruto had gotten the information that the opponent that he thought that would give him the most trouble in his fights had one of the nine tailed beasts sealed inside of him, Naruto realised that things could get very ugly really quickly and took to learning some large scale jutsus just in case something went wrong.

The first Jutsu that Naruto learnt that was on a large scale was the** Fuuton: Atsugai (Wind Release: Pressure Damage.) **This was a jutsu that compressed the Fuuton chakra to the highest degree and launched it towards the enemy and unleashed the jutsu.

The good thing about this jutsu was the fact that it was one that was not that hard to learn and that it was only hard to get it up to the high A-ranked level that it was placed in.

Learning that his possible enemy was a jinchuuriki and that he was one as well, Naruto finally chose to learn about the attacks of the Bijuu so that he could defend against them.

Finding out something that sounded so terrifying as the Bijuudama that Naruto stopped all that he was doing so that he could learn a technique that could hopefully stop the black ball of chakra from destroying his home.

It was hard finding some jutsus that would do the job which there were a few of them but none of them were jutsus that he had a hope in hell of learning in such a short time.

In the end Naruto found one that would just have to do and that was the **Fuuinjutsu: Kuchiyose: Rashomon (Sealing Arts: Summoning: Rashomon.)** this was a jutsu that summoned a massive demonic gate which was able to block a large amount of attacks and Naruto just hoped that the stronger, upgraded version of the jutsu to block a Bijuudama.

The greatest thing about this jutsu along with the new wind jutsu that he was learning was the fact that it didn't require much skill to learn and it only required a massive chakra pool to pull the jutsu off time and time again when it came to learning it.

When Naruto was learning all of these jutsus, he had initially planned to use the **Kinjutsu: Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Forbidden Jutsu: Shadow Clone Jutsu)** which would have allowed him to rapidly increase in skill in not only his ninjutsu but all other aspects of his shinobi abilities.

When the boy started using this method as a way to increase his training though, it was immediately halted by all people who watched him train as they saw signs of the Kyubi's influence and chakra seeping into Naruto making him more aggressive and nowhere near in control of his emotions without the demonic chakra that was running inside of him.

Finding out that he could only use five or so clones made Naruto disappointed as he felt as if he had hitten he jackpot when he came to that discovery but in the end it just made the creative mind of Naruto start thinking of other ways that he could be the best shinobi he could be in the short amount of time.

Having heard from his senseis that he should at least get a basic understanding over the Kyubi's chakra so that he could get a hold of it in case anything happens to him, he could delay anything bad from happening.

It was then that Naruto steeled himself so that he could have a conversation with the being that changed his life so much just by appearing in Konoha on the night that he was born. After the conversation with the Kyubi, Naruto had gone about learning how to control the Kyubi's chakra.

By the end of the training month in which Naruto was putting in 14 hours' worth of training each day, Naruto had gotten to the point in which he could fully control the first mode of his jinchuuriki modes which was the tailless state that gave Naruto black slitted red eyes.

He hadn't though gone anywhere further after that as it was hard for him to control the Kyubi's chakra at such a young age in which he had just as much control over the Kyubi's chakra as he did his own chakra.

Now Naruto could have learnt more about controlling a higher amount of the chakra in being able to go into a tailed state but it was the methodical and attention to detail when it came to training that was drilled into him thanks to Manda made it so that Naruto mastered the basics to the highest degree before moving onto something new.

Having a sensei that was the former head of the torture and interrogation department meant that Naruto had picked up some of his traits. The prime one being the ability called killer intent which allowed the user to broadcast the fact that he or she was going to win the battle in the most gruesome and terrifying was possible.

If one was proficient enough in this art they could even make it so bad that they paralyse their opponent by fear alone. This was something that Naruto had felt first hand when Manda-sensei sent it towards him when they were sparring together and Naruto got beaten quite easily as he had never felt anything like this before.

It came to the point that whilst Naruto and Manda were having their spars that Manda would on occasions use his killing intent to see whether it would open any flaws in Naruto's defences.

Eventually the blonde haired boy got over this even though the purple haired man was using killing intent on a level for high chunins. Once Naruto got that decent in it, he had asked politely to be trained in using killing intent.

By the time that Naruto's training had finished he had learnt how to scare up to low to medium level chunin who had a fair amount of experience in their chosen profession.

All in all Naruto had gone from a shinobi worthy of chunin promotion to a shinobi who could achieve the rank of Jonin if he had as much experience as someone like Kakashi or Gai.

If you thought that the only thing that Naruto Uzumaki was working on during his time at the mountain was his shinobi abilities, well than you were wrong. Naruto had dabbled into a lot of other areas such as tattooing with Shakudo-sama.

Now don't think that she had gotten Naruto to do some ink injecting straight away, no, all she had Naruto doing was constantly drawing with the ten clones that he sent to her everyday so that he could learn more and more about the art form that was body decorating.

Since Naruto had spent so much time before he went on his mission to the land of grass in which he met Karin-chan, Naruto had been spending a lot of his time getting his writing up to a high standard which helped him when it came to drawing.

Now since Shakudo knew that they didn't have enough time together for Naruto to learn anything about actually putting ink to skin, she ran him through everything apart from the actual tattooing so that when he went back to Konoha, he could go and get an apprenticeship in which they could teach him how to decorate the human body.

Since the snake clan knew all too much about Naruto's financial situation, they had told him on the final day before he went to Konoha for the chunin exams, that he would be getting some new clothes because he would be representing them and they didn't want to look bad.

The first piece of clothing was some clothing that they gave to every shinobi who signed their contract. It was the customary snake armour that was something that Naruto could tell just from his first look that it was worth a lot of money.

What they had given Naruto was a full length, skin tight compression clothing set consisting of a long sleeve shirt and trousers which stuck to the wearer's body and had a whole host of benefits. The materials used to make these clothes were the shedded skin of members of the snake clan which provided all of the special features.

The main benefit were that they allowed Naruto was that it meant that he no longer had to warm up for his training as he was able to go full bore straight from the start and not have to wait for his muscles to warm up and risk getting some sort of injury.

What they also did was that they got rid of all of the sweat coming off of his body and stopped him from getting rashes in between his legs with his sweaty thigh muscles rubbing up against each other.

They also reduced the time that it took for Naruto to recover as they helped his muscles get rid of the Creatine build up which was damaged tissue so that the muscle fibres could repair themselves as quickly as possible.

The great thing about these clothes though was that as long as you poured enough chakra into the clothes, they would regenerate any tears and become as good as knew again. The other great thing about them was that they grew with the wearer and when Naruto hit a growth spurt, then his clothes would grow accordingly.

Since Naruto wanted to look decent, the clothing that Naruto wore over the top of the compression two piece body suit was a red kimono top which had some white trimming around the edges.

To complete the look, Naruto had some black high quality ninja pants that had quite a few pockets in them and he had tied them to his black ninja sandals with some red medical gauze tape to continue with his wanting of something red on him.

With the sheath that was on his back completing his transformation, Naruto was all decked out and prepared for the upcoming chunin exams which he would be not only battling up against a clan heir, the best Hyuga clan member of his generation but also the jinchuuriki of the Ichibi no Shukaku.

**With Hinata**

Life was much better for the girl who was now out of the Hyuga clan compound and staying at the home of Kurenai Yuuhi who was the girl's sensei and mother figure all wrapped into one bundle and the heiress of one of Konoha's most powerful clans could not be any happier with the move.

The reason behind this was that she got to spend a lot more time with the people who encouraged her into trying her best when it came to being a more confident person in her life and she was readily changing when now that she had the confidence in that she could do things on her own.

She had changed so much so that Hinata could now hold a conversation with anyone who talked to her in a polite and calm voice. It was only when that they were directly talking to her in a harsh tone of voice that the shy indigo haired girl reverted back to some of her former tendencies such as poking her fingers together and retreating into her bulky jacket.

Speaking of jackets, Naruto was not the only one who had opted for a change in clothing as Hinata, coming out of her confidence had sought her sensei who was a very good looking woman in the opinion of a lot of men and asked for her to help her since she wanted to have a new clothing style to represent that she was becoming a stronger person both emotionally and physically.

What they had chosen was something that wasn't as revealing as what Kurenai wore as Hinata didn't have the self-confidence to wear clothes like that and she didn't want to get in trouble with her clan who would no doubt give her some "training" which would ruin all of the training that they had done.

In the end Hinata had (with the help of Kurenai) picked out a lavender jumper which was much slimmer fitting and showed off Hinata's growing body although not in any sexual way but enough to show that she had entered puberty.

For the bottom half of her body Hinata had gotten some white three quarter length pants which ended at her calf muscles. There the black shinobi sandals she had on completed the outfit.

The change in Hinata's personality and clothing was one that was not limited to those two fields as Hinata's shinobi abilities had also improved a lot over the past month as her newfound confidence had allowed Hinata not to always second guess and judge herself allowed for a much smoother training.

During this time Hinata had perfected the jutsu that she had been working on ever since she graduated from the academy and that technique was the **Hyuga Jyuuken Hijutsu: Hakke Rokujūyon Sho (Hyuga Gentle Fist Secret Jutsu: Eight Trigrams Sixty Four Palms) **which was the most lethal jutsu Hinata knew as it was capable of killing people but it was generally used to immobilize an enemy and make it incapable for them to fight back.

The other ninjutsu that Hinata was working was one of her own creations and she had coined the idea for this jutsu after having watched the leaf floating exercise during the academy and wanted to make it into a jutsu that could rival the **Hyuga Jyuuken Hijutsu: Hakkeshou Kaiten (Hyuga Gentle Fist Secret Jutsu: Revolving Heaven.)**

That jutsu was called the **Hyuga Jyuuken Hijutsu: Shugohakke Rokujūyon Sho (Hyuga Gentle Fist Secret Jutsu: Protection of the Eight Trigrams Sixty Four Palms)** and it was the accomplishment that gave Hinata the most pride in her abilities as a shinobi.

It wasn't as if though that Hinata was spending all of her time learning new ninjutsu moves for her to use in her battle with Ino Yamanaka because having one of the best genjutsu specialists in Konoha as your sensei surely had some benefits to it.

The genjutsu that Kurenai had taught Hinata for her battle with Ino was one that was specifically good if the user new personal details about the enemy as they could create a strong genjutsu about the fears of the enemy. Since they needed to know the enemy on a personal level and not just let the genjutsu invade the enemy's mind and find out what they feared, it made this genjutsu a stronger one compared to the **Genjutsu: Magen Narakumi no Jutsu (Illusionary Arts: Hell Viewing Jutsu.)**

This was the **Genjutsu: Magen Akumu no Jutsu (Illusionary Arts: Nightmare Jutsu) **and Hinata was happy to have the jutsu in her arsenal for when she went up against the platinum blonde haired girl that was Ino Yamanaka.

**With Ino**

Unfortunately for the purple loving girl, things were going nowhere near as good compared to what Naruto and Hinata to a lesser degree were experiencing with their respective senseis.

For the platinum blonde haired girl, things were a real eye opener for her as she read all about what she should be eating to get the most out of her body and was shocked to find out the things she did.

It turns out that boobs, the things that all normal men loved were made primarily of fat and tissue. Considering the fact that she dieted constantly to ridiculous levels to near anorexic proportions at times made her growing body not grow to its full potential.

Finding out that her diet was the cause of her having small tits in comparison to Hinata who was a good cup and a half size bigger than her made Ino envious and this was the sole reason as to why Ino stopped her dieting as she wanted to have boyfriends and knew that guys liked titties.

The side effects of increased stamina, speed and muscle strength were just some added bonuses for the blue eyed girl who loved the way how her body was now looking as her skin complexion and tone were becoming richer and she was having more energy which made her personality even happier than what it was before if that was possible.

This was needed to combat for the fact that when she had asked for help at both her sensei and her parents, they both quickly brushed her off as an inconvenience at the time.

Now being the smart little girl that she was although not on the level of her former best friend, Ino could discern that her parents were highly busy because of her newborn little brother. Well that was the excuse she used to give them the benefit of the doubt.

But because her sensei had nothing that was important and had just brushed her aside just so that he could play a game of shoji with Shikamaru who always demolished him in the game left a foul taste in the mouth of the blonde haired girl who was trying hard to find a reason to forgive the man who was her sensei.

In the end though she just couldn't find a reason to as this was not the first time that she had asked for some training but had gotten blown off but back then she wasn't focused anywhere near as much on her skills as a kunoichi so it didn't matter as much to the purple wearing girl.

Speaking of training, it was hard for the girl to find proper training as she was doing the best she could with only having books as she had been abandoned when she asked for help.

That was why Ino could really only do the basics which were increasing her chakra reserves, making her academy style taijutsu, increasing her physical abilities so that her taijutsu and stamina were also improved and finally getting her proficiency in the jutsus that she could do them in a shorter amount of time.

When it came to her training, Ino found the water walking exercise and found that it was a technique that would greatly help her as it would allow her to improve her chakra control whilst she could do something else and increase that ability at the same time.

Since the girl had small chakra reserves because of the fact that she didn't train that much which made her have very good chakra control, it was very easy for Ino Yamanaka to learn how to walk on water.

What this also did was that it made her chakra reserves bigger so that when she went into battle she would be able to use a lot more jutsus in comparison to what she was able to use before.

Reading up about anything that she could find to help improve her chances of winning her match against Hinata, Ino was looking for something along the lines of elemental ninjutsu as she had seen both Naruto and Sasuke use them and they were the best genin from her age.

Finding a book that stated to go to a ninja store and buy something called a chakra affinity tester, Ino went outside and did all that and in the end she found out that she had a close connection to the affinity of lightning. This was not much of a surprise as Ino was a member of the Yamanaka clan to which had a high clandestine lightning affinity because of the make-up of the brain and it using electrical impulses as its way with communicating with everything.

Going back to her home in which she was using her father's private clan head training grounds for her personal use and started learning how to use a ranged attack as she wanted to have something to nullify the Hyuga clan's taijutsu.

After having read the book on chakra elements Ino went into her clan's jutsu library and started searching for some elemental manipulation so that she could learn some lightning jutsus to combat Hinata.

The first jutsu that she learnt was the only one that she needed to learn after having read what the jutsu did Ino told herself that she didn't need to learn any other jutsus apart from this one and just get really good with it and increase all of her base stats as this one jutsu was all she needed against a member of the Hyuga clan.

The jutsu that Ino learnt was the **Raiton: Kurumasu Kaminari no Jutsu (Lightning Release: Blinding Thunder Jutsu.)** now this jutsu wasn't one that worked that great against the average shinobi and that was why it was ranked as a C-ranked Jutsu but it was when that it went up against someone who had great eyesight like a Dojutsu which made the jutsu as effective as a high B-ranked Jutsu and Ino thought that would be enough for his battle with Hinata.

Having known from her sensei who would talk about Kurenai quite a bit that the woman was a genjutsu mistress and would have likely taught Hinata some of her techniques, the blonde haired girl also during this time practiced dispelling genjutsu by just reading up all about spotting the illusions and using chakra internally to dispel the things.

Since Ino was eating a much better range of food she was having more energy to use in her training and was getting not only stronger but also faster as a shinobi which was essential if she wanted to make it as a chunin.

Because of the fact that Ino was getting all sweaty since she was training her body to the extreme, she was feeling less and less inclined as time went on to make herself look as pretty as it was too time consuming and was not worth it when she was just going out to train and get sweaty and dirty.

That's not to say that Ino even for a second lost her fashion hobby as the girl had changed her clothing style yet again which was nothing surprising. What was surprising though was the severe lack of bandages in comparison to her last outfit.

She had changed her outfit into something that wasn't as tedious to put on as the bandages around her chest were quite time consuming to put on. Still the girl who liked the colour purple didn't give up her likeness of bandages as she had them around her thighs and hips so that no one would see her underwear.

Over the top of the bandages, Ino was wearing a purple frilly skirt that stopped just above her knees. There wasn't anything from there on to her ankles which showed off her developing body which made a lot of guys turn their head in her direction and if she wasn't a shinobi, she would have had jailbait written all over her.

When it came to her feet, the blonde haired princess had both of her ankles wrapped up in bandages so that she had less chance of getting an injury and it helped that she had some purple shinobi sandals which made her whole outfit tie in together.

For the top half of her body, Ino had a shirt that went down to just below her elbow and was fairly tight on her skin. The thing that made it something that Ino loved was that it showed off her shoulders and allowed her developing chest to show although nothing indecent was on show.

Underneath the top Ino had a mesh body top that covered all of her chest but differed from the normal mesh tops which went towards her neck allowing her to show off her shoulders which was the whole point of the design of the top; to show off her shoulders.

On the front of the shirt it had a logo that said princess which was exactly what she was and tying in with her days working at a flower shop and had a blooming flower on her top.

Her clothing choices certainly made it so that all of the other girls who had seen her around her age were becoming very jealous, this was including Sakura and Hinata both for different reasons but were nonetheless jealous with how Ino looked.

The girl now who had changed from a hopeless fan girl just a month ago had now changed into a fully-fledged ninja and the only thing that she needed to gain her promotion to the rank of chunin was just some more experience.

**With Temari**

For the sandy blonde haired girl, she was taking her training much more seriously as she had been humiliated by that kid from the Nara clan and she had been constantly reminded of that fact by her younger brother who was getting on her nerves a lot lately.

After having gone over in her head and talking to her sensei about what she could do to make sure that what happened in the second round of the chunin exams never happened again.

What her sensei had suggested was that Temari improve her situational awareness so that she could react quicker so that she didn't fall into the enemy's trap again because she knew that they wouldn't be anywhere near as nice as what Shikamaru was when he dealt with her.

Another thing that Temari had been improving on herself was her speed which was something of a serious concern as she was a ninja who focused around power and if she had been quicker, maybe she wouldn't have gotten caught in the attack from the Nara clan member.

Seeing that his sister was getting a lot more into her training, Kankuro decided to get more active when it came to his own training as he already felt at times that he was the weak link of the team and didn't want to be kicked out just because of the fact that Gaara was a freak when it came to battling and his sister was a year older than him and that was why he was getting as well.

There were two things that Kankuro was working on at the moment and they were that he was increasing his base speed along with his big sister as he didn't want to be caught out and have his opponent get one up on him. Not only did this just include his running speed, but it also included increasing his speed with his fingers so that he could send commands to his puppets quicker.

The other thing that Kankuro was working was on being able to control more than one puppet at a time which was something that allowed Kankuro to be recognized as an intermediate level shinobi. At the moment he could control two at a time but it he couldn't move them fast enough to trouble even an academy student which meant that it would only be detrimental to trying to win his battle.

It had been decided that Kankuro would drop out of the exams so that he could be with his sister and when the invasion hit, they could meet up with Gaara and make sure everything was all good before he released the Shukaku.

They had gone via the cover of Kankuro having broken his arm during his training with his sister who was still aggressive from her loss to the Nara boy which made it quite easy for them to pass off without any investigation.

**With Sakura**

For the girl who loved the colour pink as it was the same colour as her hair, the way that she lived her life was changing, the first thing that she had done during the one month time skip was that she had gone to the library to find something to train in as the library had never strayed her onto the wrong path before as the girl wanted to learn something so that she wasn't just a weak link with her teammates as she had proven herself to be inside the forest of death.

When Sakura was looking through the library for something to learn, she had narrowed down her options to either being a genjutsu using ninja or being a medical ninja and she had chosen medical ninjutsu simply for the fact that she didn't have the imagination necessary for what some ninjas considered an art form.

The reason why Sakura was doing this was because in case her Sasuke-kun got injured in a mission again like what had happened in the forest of death, she would be able to heal and not have to feel like there wasn't something that she could be doing to save her crush from suffering any more pain.

One thing that Sakura had realised when she first started doing this new training was that she had absolutely pitiful chakra reserves and to use the **Ijutsu: Shosen no Jutsu (Healing Arts: Mystical Palm Jutsu) **she needed a fair amount of chakra in case anyone had a serious injury.

Having seen what Sasuke was like during the forest of death and hearing from the medics when she went to check up on him that he had almost died made Sakura to make her chakra reserves bigger so that she could heal any wound of Sasuke's.

The thing was though that Sakura wanted to still impress Sasuke with her good looks which meant in her deluded mind that she had to diet a lot to improve her good looks as the magazines she had read stated that guys liked skinny girls. The ironic thing was though that it was the opposite as guys liked girls with some muscle so that they had more stamina in the bedroom activities.

Surprisingly there was something about chakra was that the healthier body that you had, the more natural chakra you would have and since Sakura was borderline anorexic, it made her chakra reserves pitifully weak and her diet was not doing the girl any favours.

Since Sakura was someone who didn't like getting dirty she stopped her training as soon as she started up a sweat so that she didn't ruin all of the time that she put into making herself beautiful every morning.

What this did for the girl was that it made her training not that effective and gave her not that many results worth noting. This for a girl who when it came to her chakra abilities had gotten practically everything straight away made the girl discouraged and made her not as enthusiastic to train.

By the end of the month long period Sakura had managed to bring a recently dead fish back to life but she was not skilled enough in the jutsu that she was learning for her supervising doctors at the hospital to allow her to test her skills out on a human.

**With Naruto**

After having said goodbye which was an emotional event for the boy who had had a rough childhood and this was the closest thing that he had ever had to a family and he didn't want to be leaving but in the end he knew that he had to leave so that he could get his promotion to the rank of chunin so that he could get away from the destructive environment that was team 7.

With the use of the **Fuuinjutsu: Gyaku Kuchiyose no Jutsu (Sealing Arts: Reverse Summoning Jutsu)** Naruto was back in the place that he was born at and ready to take on his opponent who was Shikamaru from his class to which he was highly confident in being able to beat Shikamaru as Manda-sama had given him a dossier about all of the opponents that he could possibly face and found out some interesting facts about the shadow wielding clan.

It was a wonder to someone like Naruto that a clan which such wide respect as the Nara clan could have such glaring weaknesses in their shinobi abilities. The weakness that Naruto had found out about the Nara clan that made him grin like a madman was that all you had to do was overpower their shadow with your chakra and you win the battle easily as that way you render all of your opponents shadow attack (which they heavily rely on) ineffective.

For Naruto who had a powerful chakra source on his own, it would be a fairly hard job but one that was doable, when Naruto factored in the Kyubi's chakra… well for the blonde haired boy it would be just like breaking out of a genjutsu which was easy for Naruto as all that he needed was just a pulse of the Kyubi's chakra and he was back up and running again.

What this meant was that Naruto didn't have to show any of his skills as he only had to show that he could break the Nara clan jutsu which would be enough to make Shikamaru forfeit as he had no way to win the match against someone like Naruto.

The good thing about this was that it helped Naruto's plan on becoming a chunin immensely as it meant that he wouldn't have to show any other skills apart from the fact that he had access to his tenant's chakra which was something that no one knew about which would mean it was a trump card that the genin couldn't explain as they had no knowledge on it.

Appearing in his home, Naruto was instantly reminded of the fact that he lived in a shithole and in comparison to the high class living that he had experienced in the Hebi clan compound made Naruto not want to have to deal with living in a stingy apartment and made him want to get some good coin so that he could buy a house in which he get rid of the memories of his pathetic childhood and move onto a happier future.

It took a while for Naruto to think of a way to make some fairly easy money but it was not long before he found a very easy way to make a lot of money. That was to go down to the local betting agency and make some quick easy money as he was confident that he could make it easily to the final of the chunin exams, the only thing he wasn't fully confident about was him winning against Gaara who was also a jinchuuriki and there were a host of unknowns when it came to how well he could control his Bijuu.

As usual since Naruto hadn't won any support from the Konoha populace the blonde haired boy had to use the **Ninpou: Henge no Jutsu (Ninja Arts: Transformation jutsu)** to walk into the room without any trouble.

Looking at the betting prices that were on the board in front of him, Naruto saw that he could make a substantial profit as the prices for him to make the grand final of the tournament, they were paying $33.00 and that was enough to make Naruto grin as the quick maths that was going on inside of his head made the outcome of this bet enough for him to make enough money so that he could have a large house and furnish it to a high standard just like his home away from home, the snake clan.

Since Naruto had gone from his mission to Kusagakure which was a B-ranked mission and the four mission that he had taken with his team after the failed mission to the land of waves and when he had gotten back, he didn't have any time to go and spend the money that he had acquired from the mission and Naruto decided that he was going use all of the money that he had made for this best as he was 100% confident that he would be able to make it to the final round in which he would turn his $4500 bet into a $148500.

The bet was a fairly easy one to put on and since it was such a high profile event, it was easy for Naruto to place the bet without anyone even sparing a glance his way since his bet wasn't that high, the only weird thing was that he had betted on the demon who no one else decided to bet on.

Making a copy of himself, Naruto left that at the betting agency to collect his money whilst he went to the chunin exams room so that he could win his money and his promotion to the rank of chunin. What Naruto didn't notice was that there was a man with long silver hair who was watching his godson intently wondering just what kind of life he had lived as his sensei had told him that Naruto was a kid who wore an orange jumpsuit and had quite a severe case of Down syndrome and the Naruto that he was looking at right now was certainly a different Naruto to the one his sensei had told him about.

Now though, it was time for the chunin exams and Naruto was ready to show everyone just how good the snake clan was and that he was a good ninja unlike what everyone had called him a dead last for the majority of his childhood.

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><p><strong>Author's note:<strong>

**I'd like to think that I didn't make Naruto too powerful too quickly. I am basing how Naruto's skills would be like in comparison to Itachi who was a Kage level ninja by the age of 13 so I don't think that Naruto who in canon is a Kage level ninja at age seventeen so for this Naruto who is taking his training much more seriously, I don't think that it is too farfetched for him to be a Kage level shinobi by the time that the war starts as he is in cannon and then he is a retard when it comes to his training.**

**Just to let you know, these stats don't include things such as Naruto's Kyubi modes, Sasuke's sharingan / curse mark or Hinata's Byakugan.**

**Naruto:** **Ninjutsu: 3.5 Taijutsu: 2.5 Genjutsu: 1.5 Intelligence: 3 Strength: 2.5 Speed: 2.5 Stamina 4 hand Signs: 2.5 Total: 23/40**

**Hinata: Ninjutsu: 2 Taijutsu: 2.5 Genjutsu: 2 Intelligence: 3 Strength: 1 Speed: 1.5 Stamina 2 hand Signs: 1.5Total: 15.5/40**

**Ino: Ninjutsu: 1.5Taijutsu: 1.5 Genjutsu: 1.5 Intelligence: 2.5 Strength: 1 Speed: 1.5 Stamina 2 hand Signs: 2.5 Total: 14.5/40**

**Sasuke: Ninjutsu: 3 Taijutsu: 2 Genjutsu: 1.5 Intelligence: 2 Strength: 2 Speed: 3.5 Stamina 3 hand Signs: 2 Total: 19/40**

**Sakura: Ninjutsu: 1Taijutsu: 1.5 Genjutsu: 1.5 Intelligence: 3 Strength: 1 Speed: 1 Stamina 1.5 hand Signs: 2.5 Total: 13/40**


	19. You were looking

**Author's Note: **

**Sorry for the long wait, but I have had a bit of writer's block which led me to turning my interest onto my other stories.**

**Is my grammar that bad that I should actually try and do something about it? At the moment I just type what comes into my mind, spell check it and then upload it. If it's seriously bad enough that you believe that I should actually proof read it or get a beta (indirect invitation to do so if you want to) then I will.**

**The reason as to why I don't do it is because I would rather start working on the next chapter so that you readers don't have to wait as long. The question is, would you rather better grammar or faster chapter uploads?**

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><p>Waking up in the morning, Naruto went over to his cabinet and got the dietary supplements out of the cupboard and opened the hatch and downed the lot of the bad tasting items that promoted muscle growth before he went to have a shower as today was an important day in the life of Naruto and the blonde haired boy wanted to give off the best impression possible.<p>

Once that was done, Naruto got out of the shower and changed into the snakeskin compression clothing before putting on the red kimono top and black ANBU-esque pants and finally, picked up his sword which was inside of its sheath and finally left home to go to the chunin exams.

**At the stadium**

Having gotten passed the guards at the front gate to the stadium, Naruto made his way to where there were three other genins hoping to achieve the rank of chunin as well as a man who was in the stock standard Konoha shinobi uniform with a senbon in his mouth.

Five minutes later and all of the people that were going to participate in the exam were already there apart from Kankuro and Sasuke which made Naruto wonder what was going on as he thought that his teammate would be here as he wanted to obtain the rank of chunin very much.

Deciding to get some information that was making him curious from the man who was going to proctor the test, Naruto asked Genma about what was going on.

"Kankuro Sabaku has forfeited due to receiving a broken arm during his training in a spar against his sister" The special Jonin stated to Naruto. Immediately after hearing this, Naruto's attention was turned to the red haired boy from Sunagakure who had a gourd on his back and gave a long hard look at the boy before turning his attention back to the senbon sucking proctor.

"You forgot to mention Sasuke, where is he?" Naruto questioned, wondering where his teammate was as he wanted to fight him and prove once and for all, that he was the better of the two and that he no longer looked up to him and that they were equals.

Annoyed at the boy in front of him, Genma spoke up to Naruto in a fairly grouchy tone indicating to Naruto that he didn't want the conversation to last any longer "He hasn't shown up yet, I don't know any more than what you do."

**With Hiruzen**

"You haven't found Sasuke-kun yet? Hiruzen questioned to his subordinate who could only shake his head in a negative fashion.

"No sir but we do have a few ANBU teams looking around but no such luck." It was then that a thought appeared inside the head of Raido Namiashi and he voiced his concerns to the Hokage. "Is it possible that Orochimaru has already gotten Sasuke… if so then it may be too late to find him Hokage-sama." The special Jonin of Konoha said to his boss.

The only response that the aging Hokage gave was a subtle "I see" before his attention was taken away from his subordinate and was locked onto the form of the Yondaime Kazekage. Getting over this in a matter of seconds, Hiruzen welcomed the man into the VIP stands. "You must be tired from your journey Kazekage-san." Hiruzen articulated offering the seat next to him for the other ninja village ruler.

Having the ability to be both condescending as well as polite at the same time allowed the snake Sannin who was in disguise to be able to talk with his sensei with the upmost amounts of ease. "Not at all, good thing that it is held here this time; while you're still young Hokage-sama, the trip may have been too much for you. Maybe it's time for you to decide on who the Godaime Hokage shall be?" Orochimaru questioned to his sensei, wanting to get a rise out of the professor for insinuating that he was weak and not strong enough to run a five great shinobi village.

Dismissing the barb that was thrown his way, Hiruzen Sarutobi replied with mirth etching each of his words. "Hahaha, please don't treat me like a frail old man, I do intend to do this for another five years." It was after that statement that there was a silence between the two of the most powerful ninjas inside of Konoha's borders with Jiraiya being the other one inside of this category. "Well now, let's begin this tournament okay?"

Sensing that the question that his sensei had asked him was a rhetorical question, Orochimaru didn't bother to answer Hiruzen as the aging Hokage stood up to speak to the crowd in front of him. "Thank you everyone for coming to the final round of the chunin exams being held in Konoha!" this statement from the Hokage was one that elicited copious amounts of cheers from the crowd.

"We will now start the tournament the main tournament matches between the eight participants who made their way through the preliminary fights. Now please stay and wait to the end!" Hiruzen shouted before he went and sat back down in his seat whilst the crowd roared to life with applause as they were no doubt excited to see the match between the Uchiha heir and the youngest son of the current Kazekage.

**With Genma**

Disinterested as he didn't want to be spending some time with snot nosed brats, the Shiranui male held out a piece of paper for all of the chunin hopefuls in front of him to have a look at. "There have been some minor changes to the roster for today's matches, have a look to see whether or not you are affected by these changes.

Looking at the sheet of paper in front of him, Naruto saw that the changes to the format didn't affect him at all; it actually made a fairly easy swap with Neji taking the place of Kankuro in battling Shino and no one getting a free run into the semi-finals.

Satisfied with the amount of time that the genin had to look at the paper in front of him, the special Jonin folded it back up and put it back into his pocket before speaking to the genin. "Alright guys, this is the final test. The arena is different but the rules are the same as the preliminary rounds. You fight until either one of you dies or admits defeat but if I determine that the match has gone far enough, I'll step in and stop it, got that?" Genma questioned to the chunin hopefuls in front of him who all nodded in confirmation as they got the message he was delivering.

"Now the first fight is between Naruto Uzumaki and Shikamaru Nara, those two stay here, the rest of you go back to the waiting room," Genma stated to the genin who obeyed his order as all of them were itching for their respective fight to start and if they had to wait for the match between Naruto and Shikamaru, then so be it.

With the blonde haired boy standing right next to the black haired boy, Genma called the match to go forward and the moment the signal was given, both Naruto and Shikamaru jumped back to put some distance between each other. The difference between the two was that Naruto had his arms crossed on top of his chest, indicating that he wasn't taking this fight seriously. For the Sandaime who was watching the event take place, he sighed as he wished that Naruto didn't act cocky but it seemed as if there were some things that just never changed.

Despite being mildly irritated about Naruto not giving him the decency to even look like he was seriously taking this match even remotely seriously, Shikamaru thought that he could use this to his advantage by using his clan's famous jutsu to try and capture Naruto early on as he knew that that was his only way to win.

Placing his hands in a hand sign, Shikamaru called out the name of his jutsu as a thin shadow stretched along the ground racing towards Naruto Uzumaki. "**Nara Hijutsu: Kagemane no Jutsu (Nara Clan Secret Jutsu: Shadow Possession Jutsu)"**

It was not long after Shikamaru called the name of the jutsu that the shadow latched onto Naruto's own and everyone was booing except the people who put money on Shikamaru winning were thinking that Naruto was throwing his match as he didn't even offer any form of resistance. This was so much so that everyone started throwing their food and drinks at the son of the fourth Hokage.

None more so shocked, annoyed and beyond angry was the Sandaime Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi as what Naruto was doing now went against all of his ideals in wanting to become the future Hokage of Konoha.

Even the normally highly lazy heir to the Nara clan was disappointed as he wanted at least some form of fight against his acquaintance from the academy and it was a minute into Naruto being caught in his jutsu that something happened. This all changed though when his head was forcibly dragged down facing the ground and there was only one person who was able to do it since he didn't choose to do it himself.

That person was indeed Naruto as he had practiced channelling the Kyubi's chakra through his body to get a basic understanding of it and now was the first time that he got to battle test his new mode. Another thing that Naruto was field testing for the first time, was his ability to produce killer intent and this combined with the Kyubi's bloodlust and chakra made for a truly scary sight in front of Shikamaru.

Because Naruto wasn't skilled enough in producing killer intent that he could solely direct at one person, thus it meant that everyone in the stadium felt the raw an unbridled killing intent that Naruto was shelling out and it made even the Tokubetsu Jonin in the stands almost shit their pants from fear. This was a feeling that everyone below the rank of Jonin and even then some Jonin felt fear of, all bar one.

That one was none other than the son of the current Kazekage Gaara Sabaku who was having pains inside of his head as the demon sealed inside of him was muttering about killing a lot of people.

For Hiruzen, Orochimaru and Jiraiya who could all feel the killing intent radiating off of the boy were impressed that Naruto could produce such powerful killing intent. To them it felt as if it was like a combination of the predator like feeling whenever Orochimaru used his own killing intent combined with sinister feeling that gave the impression that it didn't care who it killed as long as it killed.

For Shikamaru though who was the closest person to where Naruto was letting off this feeling of predator vs. prey, it was something that he had never faced before since Asuma had never thought to prepare his students against killing intent since they were only genin. This was why he fell to the ground with a dull thud echoing throughout the stadium as he was lost into the world of unconsciousness.

Seeing that the Nara clan boy was down and wasn't going to be getting up any time soon, Genma knew that it was time to call the match over as the Uzumaki boy had won solely on killing intent alone. "Naruto Uzumaki is the winner."

**With Hiruzen Sarutobi**

Truly shocked was the only thing that Sarutobi could think as he was stunned speechless with the performance that Naruto had just made right there in front of him. Had he not seen it with his very own eyes, he would have immediately called bullshit and told whoever it was that he was talking to to stop lying.

The fact that he saw it with his own eyes and the added stunned silence from the crowd as a lot of civilians fainted from the sheer pressure of the killing intent. Speaking of the killing intent, Sarutobi grimly thought about what the implications of it feeling like the killing intent that his former student could mean as it could mean in the worst case possible that Naruto had gotten trained exclusively for an entire month by his former student himself and who knew what Orochimaru could have done to twist his mind into hating Konoha. If there was anyone who had the makings to become someone like that than it was surely Naruto. Add the Kyubi no Kitsune to the mix and it was a completely different shit storm and one that he didn't want to face. Making his mind up, Hiruzen told himself that he would have Naruto come into his office once all of this was done and question him as to why he had changed so much over such a small amount of time.

The one thing that the Sandaime Hokage couldn't deny was the fact that Naruto had improved to level beyond what Hiruzen thought he was possible of achieving going by the amount of progress Naruto had made during his time in the academy.

_How did Naruto-kun gather the ability to produce killing intent? That's an ability that only Jonin know how to do. Add to it Naruto also has enough control to go into his first Bijuu transformation. How did Naruto-kun even find someone willing to train him in how to use the Kyubi's power? The only person I know that would be willing to do that outside of an order would be Jiraiya-kun who didn't show up to give me a report so he wouldn't have had enough time to train Naruto._

_It seems that I will have to be having a chat with Naruto once this is all said and done. _Little did the Sandaime Hokage know that he would never get the chance to question Naruto on his most recent change in both personality and skill.

Not only were thoughts racing a mile a minute in the mind of the aging ninja but they were also going at the same speed inside the mind of the snake Sannin as he tried to put the pieces of the puzzle together concerning the Kyubi jinchuuriki. _How had he gotten the eye of Manda? Is there that much hatred inside the Kyubi jinchuuriki that I should convert him over to my side and use him in my quest to destroy the hidden leaf village?_

_From all of the reports that Kabuto had sent me, the Kyubi jinchuuriki was a pathetic ninja but from what I have seen, he is anything but that even going with the small display just then, Naruto-kun is going to be a strong ninja. It would be such a shame if he got in my way kukuku._

**With Jiraiya**

Just like it was hard for Hiruzen and Orochimaru to comprehend the fact that Naruto was giving off a killing intent that was synonymous with the snake Sannin, it was hard for Jiraiya to grasp the concept that Naruto was becoming more and more like his former teammate than like either himself, Minato or Kushina.

How had Naruto gotten so good in controlling the Kyubi? Who was willing to train him in that? It was impossible for Orochimaru to have gotten his hands on Naruto as the Naruto he had been informed about from his sensei would be someone that Orochimaru wouldn't be caught dead with someone with the personality of Naruto.

That left one question in the mind of Jiraiya when it concerned his godson and that was who was it that had given Naruto all of this training?

In the end Jiraiya knew that if there was one person to blame for all of this, it was him as he could have chosen to have an active part in his godson's life but in the end he chose the "noble" decision in that he would protect all of Konoha rather than just his godson who seemed to not even need him at all.

**With Kakashi**

The killing intent that his student had produced was something that even Kakashi could feel from a large distance away only due to the fact that Naruto had no control whatsoever when it came to killing intent. What this meant was that Naruto was blasting it everywhere and not directed at one person only.

Speaking of the killing intent, the silver haired Jonin could distinctly tell that this was made up with a large portion of the Kyubi's chakra and this was something that worried the copy-cat ninja. Wanting to find out what was going on back at the chunin exams, Kakashi decided that Sasuke's little extra training wasn't as important as finding out what was happening to Naruto at the exams and made them leave to get to the exams just a little bit quicker.

**In the competitor's box**

The pale eyed Hyuga heiress who normally didn't have much confidence, well it was safe to say that she was very scared with what Naruto had just done to make Shikamaru faint just by looking at him. It was hard to believe that Naruto, the boy that she had a crush on could change in such a short amount of time into someone so ruthless and scary. This was not the hyperactive knucklehead ninja that she knew. This was not her Naruto-kun and she didn't like this new Naruto one bit at all.

Just that feeling of raw an unbridled killing intent coming off of her crush was enough to make Hinata want to never have to face the blonde haired boy as she knew that the ending result would be bad.

What Hinata didn't know was that Kurenai was also sharing this belief in she didn't want her student to go up against the Kyubi jinchuuriki who didn't have a problem in using its chakra on an ally with further cemented her beliefs in that Naruto wasn't someone that Hinata should be around let alone have romantic feelings for.

Much like what was going through the mind of Hinata, the princess to the strongest clan in all of Konoha, Ino Yamanaka was thinking along the same lines in that what her fellow blonde had done was very scary. The part that contrasted with Hinata though was that Naruto could have used whatever power that was to hurt Shikamaru but instead chose not to and she was thankful for that.

Despite the fact that her thoughts to Shikamaru being a lazy ass, she still did have feelings of friendship for the member of the Nara clan as all of the times that wouldn't go away soon. She was just angry at him for not haven taken his training seriously if Naruto was able to beat him without any form of jutsu (taijutsu included.)

**With Naruto**

The reaction that the crowd was giving Naruto was one that he expected. The blonde haired boy knew that he wouldn't get any cheers from the people of Konoha because he knew that they didn't like him that well. Naruto knew that they wouldn't out rightly jeer him as that would make the travelling tourists wonder what was happening. That was why they just settled for making no noise at all. It wasn't something that Naruto was too shocked about though he would have liked it had he gotten some recognition for winning the fight.

Hopefully with the next fight that he was in, he would be able to show off more of his skills that would not only land him a promotion to the rank of chunin but it would also land him with some rightfully deserved respect and acknowledgement of the Konoha populace.

It was then that Naruto knew that it was now time for him to go up the stairs so that he could wait in the competitor's box and watch the matches go on and decipher the abilities that his enemies had gained over the past month.

Walking up the staircase, everyone who had just watched him fight were looking at him, some with slight awe, the others with fear after witnessing what had happened to Sasuke. The other two people were thinking that Naruto wasn't anything special and that they were going to kill him so that they could prove their existence to mother. Those were the respective thoughts of Neji and Gaara.

Quickly after those thoughts entered their heads, the thoughts of the two females who were close by to Naruto quickly changed. That was because they, now being as close as they were to the blonde haired kid could now see just how much he had change physically. With all of the training that Naruto had done shown off by the fact that Naruto was wearing form fitting clothing that accentuated all of the training that he had done to the point where it showed off his slowly growing upper chest.

When it came to staring at who she thought was a cutie, Ino was unashamed with how much she was staring and thought to herself that with Sasuke being someone who never showed her any chance that they could be a possibility and with Naruto looking better than ever, that she might as well try and get him as her boyfriend instead.

Despite the fact that Naruto had recently changed into a different person, someone that Hinata wasn't sure whether she liked or not, this was offset when she didn't even have to look with the help of her clan's Dojutsu to see just how good looking Naruto was. Out of the corner of her eye she could see that the other girls her age were now seeing just how good Naruto was. Hinata had not dropped any of the feelings that she had for Naruto and now she realised that she was going to be more forward when it came to being closer with Naruto so that she could stake her claim and tell all other girls that Naruto was her and hers alone.

It would be a sad realisation for the girl once she knew that Naruto had his eyes on someone else and that he had even lost his virginity to said girl. You see Hinata wanted the moment of grandeur in that Naruto and herself both professed their love for one another. After that they would get married and have a large family with their first times with each other being after marriage. The imagination of teenage girls was seriously something that should be controlled or like what this was setting up to be, it will lead to pain if you have such high hopes.

That was why many ninjas were pessimists rather than optimists as they knew that if you were like that, then at least you could only be pleasantly surprised when shit hit the fan.

**With Orochimaru**

"Hahaha, they're quite restless aren't they? The crowd I mean. They paid good money and all they got to see was a genin use killing intent alone to make his opponent faint from it. I assume that they are feeling hard done by." The Kazekage in disguise mused as he wanted to get a reaction out of his sensei. Unfortunately that did not happen though as Hiruzen was too busy with pressing matters that were of more importance. That was the fact that the star attraction for the exams, one Sasuke Uchiha was not here. He was the person that a lot of the paying customers had come to see and they would be very disappointed if they did not get to see the kid in action.

"That's just it" Raido whispered into his dictator's ear as he thought that what they were going through was something embarrassing and that it should not be heard by the other villages. "We are still unable to find him Hokage-sama and we also have Orochimaru to deal with so before everyone starts to make a big fuss, how about we disqualify the boy for not having arrived on time?" Raido questioned as he wanted to know what was going on and prevent an incident from occurring.

It was then that the smooth negotiating voice of his former student reared its ugly head and forced itself into the conversation. "Hokage-dono, please wait a little longer before making this decision."

It was Raido's turn to speak up, well it wasn't really his turn but he chose that moment to speak up anyway. "I beg your pardon, but anyone who takes punctuality lightly, is someone who does not deserve to become a chunin, no matter how skilled they are. Unless there is a good enough reason to convince the high society people, then we should go on without him."

The moment that Orochimaru found the gap so that he could retort, he did just that. "I seem to recall one of your elite Jonin named Kakashi Hatake being someone who was always late. If he is allowed that leeway, then surely someone who is a descendant from one of the founding fathers of Konohagakure should be allowed the same right?" Orochimaru stated to which the special Jonin just started spluttering trying to dig himself out of the mess he had put himself into.

Unconcerned about what was happening to Raido Namiashi, the snake Sannin continued on speaking. "Even so, I still see a reason which would be satisfactory for the daimyo's and the other various lords in attendance. The majority of the shinobi leaders and every other high ranking person here are mainly here so that we can see the match between the Uchiha heir and my youngest son Gaara." The Kazekage in disguise stated to which the special Jonin didn't know what to say in response.

In the end he didn't need to think of what to say though as it was Hiruzen Sarutobi who spoke up. "Very well then, let's postpone his match and allow the other matches to go on ahead. If he is still not here by the time his match comes up, then we will have to disqualify him." The Sandaime Hokage stated to which the snake Sannin smirked behind his veil as he knew that his sensei was still as easily manipulable as always.

Without needing to be told what his next task was, Raido Namiashi went to where his friend Genma was standing and told him what he was going to have to recite to the crowd which was getting slowly agitated more and more as time went on.

Unconcerned with what was happening with his two special Jonin, Hiruzen turned his attention back to the fourth Kazekage. "It seems though that you are pushing for this match to go ahead Kazekage-dono."

With the smirk not having waned off of his face, Orochimaru turned his attention back to his sensei and started talking to him. "Not at all, there's no better opponent for Gaara, than the Uchiha so that he can show off the skill of Sunagakure to all of these possible clients. It's a great opportunity for us to show just how strong we are."

**With Genma**

After hearing the news in that there was going to be a rescheduling of the matches, it was now up to the senbon sucking special Jonin to inform the rest of the people who had paid good money to watch the chunin exams. "Ladies and gentlemen, the contestant for the next match has not arrived yet. Therefore we have pushed that match back to the last one for this round. This means that the next match will be between Neji Hyuga from Konoha against Shino Aburame from Konoha as well. Will the next two contestants come down to the arena so that we could get the match started please?"

The crowd didn't know what to think as they were highly anticipated for the match between the descendants of one of Konoha's founding clans who was battling against the son of the current Kazekage. When that was put on hold they were about to start a riot but thankfully for that, they were placated as they heard that the prodigy of the Hyuga clan was going up against the clan heir from one of Konoha's most respected clans. That combined with the fact that they were going to still have the match between Sasuke Uchiha and Gaara Sabaku was still going to go ahead if the boy could get there on time for the last match of the round.

Not even a minute later and the two shinobi who were scheduled for their fight were standing a few metres away from each other, each staring down their opponent trying to find a weakness in their opponent in that they could use to their advantage.

"Hajime" Genma called out as he allowed the two genin shinobi in front of him to go at hit full blast. Jumping back, the special Jonin watched as Neji rushed at his opponent trying to end the match as quickly as possible. Now you see that had Neji been fighting against someone that he felt that he could toy around with and not lose any chakra, say for example, the Naruto before he took his shinobi training seriously, he would have toyed around with his enemy making snide remarks. There was several factors thought that one had to take into consideration.

The first one was that he relied on reading the facial expressions of his opponent to determine what to say. With his opponent being a member of the Aburame clan, what little bits of Shino's face that Neji could see, would be really hard to get a read off of due to the emotional conditioning that the clan instilled into their children from an early age.

The second thing was that the Aburame clan was a clan that was known for being able to suck the chakra from their opponents through mere contact. He wanted to make sure that that did not happen as judging from what he had seen with Naruto and all of the other competitors barring his cousin and her opponent, none of the people he was potentially going to be going up against today were easy beats and he wanted to conserve as much chakra as possible for those fights.

Knowing thanks to the clan library that the Aburame clan liked to use guerrilla warfare tactics in their fights, Neji knew that the best way for him to win this fight was to get as confrontational as possible, as soon as possible. Activating his Dojutsu so that Shino wouldn't be able to hide thanks to the greatest set of eyes, Neji charged at Shino.

Noticing that Shino was in the middle of going through some hand seals, Neji quickly channelled some chakra into a kunai that had found its way into his hand to make it faster when it sailed through the air. What this action did, was that if forced Shino to make the decision on whether or not he wanted to take the hit and get off his jutsu, or dodge and have to restart the hand seal process all over again.

Judging by the way in which Neji was quickly coming after him, he just had to hope for the best in that he would not come out of the situation with a serious injury. Thankfully for Shino though, with the adrenaline and the slight bit of fear running through his body, he managed to pull off his technique before the kunai hit him.

The technique that Shino had chosen to use was the **Aburame Hijutsu: Mushi Bunshin no Jutsu (Aburame Secret Clan Jutsu: Insect Clone Jutsu.) **Said clone was made right in front of Shino as he jumped back right after this was made so that he could get some distance between himself and his opponent. He knew that he was at a crossroads due to the fact that his opponent was a member of the Hyuga clan and would be able to spot him when he was trying his hardest to hide.

That was why the Aburame had resigned to the fact that he was going to have to fight the prodigy of the Hyuga clan in a head on battle. This was something that not only he knew, but it was also something that anyone who was in the crowd and ranked chunin and above would notice. More importantly though, it was the officials who were deciding whether or not who got promoted noticed the situation that Shino was in. They wanted to see what Shino was like when he was taken out of his comfort zone. The pressure cooker was an ideal place to test genin on whether or not they had what it took to become a chunin of Konohagakure or their respective village.

With the Aburame clan being one of the ones that had a lot of knowledge on them, Neji knew what they were like. That's why he knew that they loved to use their clan's specific variant of the clone technique when the enemy was close and subsequently use the insects that were close to surround the enemy and drain their chakra.

That was why Neji hadn't just used a regular kunai; he had actually used a kunai that had an explosion seal engraved into it. As the kunai made contact with the clone of Shino, Neji watched with his very good eyes at how the clone turned back into what it originally was. That was an insect clone. Not only was it that that told Neji that what was in front of him was not the real Shino, but there was the fact that in comparison to the real Shino, this one had only a tenth of the chakra on hand.

When the clone did turn into the bugs, it was this time that Neji channelled some chakra into the chakra seal on the kunai through the use of the ram seal and watched how the piece of metal exploded, destroying all life forms in the immediate vicinity.

Thankfully for Shino though he was far away enough from the blast in that he didn't take any serious damage. It did not mean though that he was able to escape without taking some form of hit as his clothes were singed by the blast but he managed to quickly put the fire out.

Since Shino was teammates with someone who was teammates with Hinata who was a member of the main branch and that Neji was a part of the branch clan which meant that he didn't have access to all of the main branch's favoured techniques. Shino knew from his father that they had only one technique which was a jutsu that was reserved solely for the main branch which meant that Neji was not someone who was to know the Kaiten.

This combined with the fact that the Hyuga instilled into their clan members in that they should only use moves originating from their clan and not one from other origins. What this meant that if he could use an area of effect jutsu on Neji, then it would go a long way to winning the fight.

That was great considering that he was someone that, for his age had a large amount of area of effect jutsus. Opening his arms horizontally, Shino let loose a large contingent of his colony into the attack he had planned as he was fairly confident in the fact that Neji would not be able to block him.

All the while this was going on; Neji knew that his only chance of winning this fight was through close range combat and that he had to get it done as soon as possible. Racing towards Shino, Neji used a chakra enhanced dash to get to before the bugs of Shino could get to him as they were attacking him from the left and right, not a direct front on attack.

This was a primary lesson to all children who wanted to be ninjas that one of the most crucial elements of being a ninja is that generally, the person who is the fastest is generally the person who will end up winning the fight.

Thanks to the bloodline that he had access to, Neji could see the points in which he could see where the parts inside Shino's body in which the insects liked use as their congregational point. Making the connection that it was that place that was the point in which he would deal the most amount of damage , Neji decided to attack there.

The moment that Shino realised that Neji had got inside of his guard, he valiantly tried to keep Neji to a stalemate in terms of taijutsu but it was not something that he could keep up for even longer than 15 seconds as Neji had used his speed and technique and landed the first hit.

Thanks to just how powerful the Jyuuken taijutsu was, it meant that once the first hit connected, it made it substantially easier for the subsequent hits to connect with their opponent and create even more damage for the enemy to deal with.

As soon as the central hub for the insects inside of his body, the half of the bugs changed their plan and instead went back to the hive so that they could run damage control whilst the other ones continued on with their plan to suck all of the chakra that was stored up in Neji's body.

Having seen the abilities of Naruto first hand and knowing that he was going to be his next opponent combined with the fact that Naruto had a massive chakra network to which he hadn't used during his fight, the Hyuga prodigy made his decision to end the fight as soon as possible.

"**Hyuga Hijutsu: Hakke Rokujūyon Sho (Hyuga Clan Secret jutsu: Eight Trigrams Sixty Four Palms)**" Neji called out as he managed to get 55 out of the 64 hits on his opponent's body doing serious amounts of damage to Shino's chakra network.

This was beyond shocking for anyone who was a person that had experience with members of both sides of the clan as they knew that only about 5% of the lower house knew the techniques of the main branch. To see someone so young and see them be able to use the main branch's techniques so well was very impressive.

This was something that Shino certainly did not expect to happen as he expected Neji not to have knowledge on many main branch techniques. That was why when he hit Shino with the attack, the insects that were trying to suck up all of his chakra and instead went back to the body that their hive was in so that they could fix the problem via unlocking Shino's chakra points.

Seeing the imminent threat in the Kikaichu insects disappear Neji slightly relaxed although he didn't release the balanced stance of the Jyuuken. He wanted to make sure that if anything did happen, that he would be able to defend himself against it.

With his Byakugan, Neji could see just how much damage he had caused for Shino and could tell that he wasn't going to be able to get up. That was why Neji went back to his tried and true method of antagonizing the enemy. This was through the use of condescension and patronization.

"it was fated that you were going to lose to me today due to you being a member of the Aburame clan whilst I am a member of the Hyuga clan. I am a close range specialist that can see through everything. This is in comparison to you who need to hide but you can't do that due to my Dojutsu. You shouldn't have even bothered to fight me. Quit now otherwise you will continue to suffer damage." Neji stated to which Shino could only nod.

The member of the Aburame clan could have used his insects to open his chakra network again but he knew that it would be very painful and not really worth it as he wouldn't be able to move as fast and that would just be a glaring weakness for his opponent Neji to make painfully obvious.

Seeing what was the right thing for him to do at this current point in time, Shino in the end decided that it was best for him to forfeit the match so that he could allow his tenketsus to heal naturally, rather than using his Kikaichu to force them open too soon.

"I can see my limitations in that me battling a Hyuga was the worst possible battle scenario for me out of all the other fighters. I know when to quit and when the right time not to quit. The fact that this is the chunin exams and my life is not in danger, I know that now I should focus on getting stronger, not sustaining more injuries to keep me out of action for longer than necessary." Shino stated out loud mostly to himself although he said it enough for Genma and Neji to hear it.

Hearing the words coming from his mouth made Shino that he was correct in the decision that he was just about to make as it would also go towards him getting promoted which was something that he wanted to achieve quite a lot. He wanted to gain the respect of his comrades as he was used to being socially ostracized due to the pseudo bloodline given to all children members of the Aburame clan.

Wanting the judges to hear his reasoning in why he chose to forfeit the match, Shino channelled some chakra into his vocal cords to enhance his voice. "I know when I have met my match. For an Aburame, one of the worst possible people we could vs. is a member of the Hyuga clan who have their Dojutsu which negates my stealth techniques. Despite how hard I try, I will not be able to win this battle. Maybe at a later date when I am more proficient in some of the clan's more technical jutsus, then I would be able to defeat Neji but at this current state, that is not possible and it would not be logical for me to try and risk injury." Shino stated and the moment that these words went into the ears of everyone. The shinobies in the crowd nodded as they could tell who was going to win the match.

The resulting clapping and cheering that came as the crowd loved that fight much more than the previous one because this one at least had some form of combat. Neji was happy as he knew that he hadn't expelled much chakra at all and it left him with enough for him to use against Naruto in his next match.

For Shibi who was in attendance, he was proud of the way how his son had fought and the moment that he realised that he wouldn't be able to win, he did the right thing in forfeiting so that he wouldn't sustain any more unnecessary damage.

These were the same thoughts that were running through the heads of the chunin judges as they could tell that his performance right in front of them was chunin worthy. Despite Shino not showing many skills in terms of battle efficiency, he showed that he had the correct mindset for a shinobi. Compared to what all of the genin thought, the tests were not just pass the first two and get judged on the third, no, you got judged on everything that happened during the test. To do this, they had a Jonin using their stealth skills to follow each team and write a detailed report.

In Shino's case, the Jonin had made the recommendation that the boy had the skills. Combining this with what they had just seen, they were confident in the fact that if he was promoted, he would do Konoha proud.

**With Naruto**

The blonde haired boy who had watched what had just happened had realised just how fast Neji was. Before in the preliminaries Neji had showed considerable speed when he dispatched Choji though compared to what he had just seen, he knew that Neji had been holding back… a lot. It made him realise that his road to winning the exams was going to be harder than he previously anticipated.

Oh well a challenge was definitely something that Naruto Uzumaki relished and he was definitely not going to back down from one. He wanted to win this and prove to Konoha that he wasn't the same person that he once was. The blonde haired boy wanted to face a close quarter specialist so he could see just how good he was with his sword. He couldn't wait for when it was his time to actually fight someone worthy.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

**I hope that Neji wasn't too out of character. I can see him taking things more seriously when he is going up against stronger opponents like Shino compared to someone like cannon Naruto.**

**Spoiler alert! Don't read if you're not up to date with the manga.**

**Anyways… if you have read the manga, massive plot twist in that Madara was actually in the sixth coffin! I can't wait to see his skills in battle and also find out who is pretending to be Tobi. The plot twists in this just keep on getting better and better.**

**I'm hoping to see some really cool fire jutsus because we haven't seen any awesome and S-rank worthy fire ninjutsus. Apart from Doton which isn't as bad, it has like no noteworthy fire jutsus that anyone can use without a bloodline.**


	20. For yourself out there

**Author's Note****: **

**Just like in one of my other stories where I was at a bit of a road block in that story, the same could be said for this story. That is why I have decided to skip the fights that did not have Naruto in them.**

**For the following results, Ino vs. Hinata ended in a Hinata win despite Ino proving that she is a capable shinobi. With Sasuke not being there in time, Sarutobi decides to allow the semi-final between Naruto and Neji to take place and time waste before Sasuke gets there.**

**Now it is time for the fight between Naruto and Neji.**

* * *

><p>There was a tense silence in the stadium as right now the crowd didn't know what to think about the new Uzumaki Naruto. This was an Uzumaki Naruto that defied all preconceived conceptions on how the blonde haired boy used to behave.<p>

Originally they thought that the boy would struggle through trying to find a way to break through the defences of the shadow wielding ninja with the use of maybe one or two traps that he had gained unconventional experience using them through the pranks that he did on the village. In the end they thought that he would get caught in the shadow of the Nara clan heir where he would force the demon container to give up.

They certainly did not expect for Naruto to manage to beat the son of the Jonin commander of Konoha through the simple use of killing intent, they had never thought that a mere genin was even capable of producing the stuff let alone a rookie genin being able to produce on it on the level where it could render even some Jonin speechless.

What was even more surprising was the fact that the boy didn't even have to show a single jutsu to suggest what he was capable of. It was clear to the shinobi in the audience that the boy that left the academy as the dead last had changed. The question was by just how much had the blonde dead last had improved and whether or not it would make him on a level where he could fight with the genius of the Hyuga clan and could make it a contest instead of a full gone conclusion.

What else was surprising was the fact that the gaki who ran around the village shouting out the fact to anyone and everyone that he was going to become the Hokage of Konohagakure was not wearing his trademarked orange tracksuit.

Instead the set of clothes that everyone had associated with Naruto Uzumaki, the boy had chosen to wear something completely different. In the eyes of the many teenage girls in the stands that knew what he used to wear, this was a very improved look for the blonde haired genin ninja.

It was a look that showed that Naruto had matured quite a lot since the last time that they had seen him. No longer was he in a baggy tracksuit that made people cringe when they looked at him and not because of the fact that he was the jinchuuriki of the Kyubi no Kitsune. The look that he had going on now with the slightly longer hair and the much tighter to the skin clothing that he was now wearing was showing off the fact that he had a growing shinobi body.

Well this was the thought of the younger generation. The older generations still held prejudice for the boy as he was the symbol for all of the pain and suffering that they had to go through on October the tenth 13 years ago. The thoughts running through their mind was that the jinchuuriki was getting smarter going by his change in fashion and he was much stronger also going by his display in the use of killing intent.

Worrying thoughts were running through their minds as they didn't necessarily like the fact that the village jinchuuriki was getting stronger because it meant that if the boy decided to revolt, he would be able to cause a whole lot more damage before he was put down.

That was why everyone's attention was directed to the stadium below as they wanted to see just how much Naruto Uzumaki had improved and whether or not it was something that should be looked at more closely as no one seemed to take an interest in Naruto. It was allowing the jinchuuriki to slip under Konoha's radar and get stronger while no one knew.

This was none more so than Jiraiya of the Densetsu no Sannin and Sarutobi Hiruzen the Sandaime Hokage of Konoha. They both had a vested interest in how Naruto would perform and what skills he would show as when the boy let off the killing intent was eerily similar to their teammate and student respectively.

They in no way, shape or form wanted Naruto to head anywhere near close to the same path as what Orochimaru had gone down.

With the power of the Kyubi backing Naruto, only Kami-sama knew just how much destruction Naruto could cause. One thing that was for sure though was that they didn't want to find out.

One thing that their trained eyes did notice though was that Naruto was wearing the snakeskin under armour that Orochimaru used to constantly always were and probably still wore to this very day. That painted a very bad sign if Naruto was getting gifts from Orochimaru. It might also explain why Naruto had made a massive change in personality in such a short amount of time, too short for someone like the Hokage to notice. The last time he saw Naruto, he was a happy go lucky boy. Admittedly he had heard concerns coming from Kakashi stating that Naruto's distinctive personality had changed a lot recently but he had dismissed those because he didn't think that Naruto's personality would change that easily and even if it did start changing, it would take a long time for such a happy boy like Naruto to have such a severe change in personality when he found out about the Kyubi being sealed inside of him which didn't change the boy's personality at all as far as the Sandaime Hokage was concerned.

One thing that was certain though was that the moment that the chunin exams were over, his surrogate grandson was going to have to have a talk with him about who he associated with and never to accept presents from strangers. He had to act quickly before his former student could poison his mind any further. While he could handle Orochimaru taking any other shinobi and it not affecting his military's prowess, Naruto, with the Kyubi sealed inside of him was a crucial element in the power standings of the five great shinobi nations.

If it ever got out to the other places that Konoha was no longer in possession of their jinchuuriki and even more so to the point that it had turned into a traitor and decided to destroy the village, it would be enough of a precursor to start another great shinobi war.

More to the point though they didn't want to betray the memory of Minato Namikaze anymore than what they already had when it came to the son of the Yondaime Hokage. They both knew that they could have done a whole lot more when it came to increasing the way of life for Naruto Uzumaki. Naruto could have lived with a family for the formative years of his life, hell he could have even lived with his own godfather but due to certain circumstances, that did not happen.

Respectively they chose to see what would happen during this match to see how far they would investigate into Naruto's private life before taking action.

**With Naruto**

Now Naruto knew that this fight he was about to initiate was going to be much more challenging compared to his previous one even if only because of the fact that his opponent Neji Hyuga had seen his killing intent and would be more prepared against. Well prepared enough against it so that he didn't faint on the spot.

That was even before Naruto countered even in that Neji was a whole class above Shikamaru in terms of shinobi ability. He had the Byakugan which was an eye based Dojutsu which allowed him to see any form of genjutsu being used. It was a good thing for Naruto that his fighting style did not revolve around genjutsu or he would be royally screwed.

His taijutsu was the best out of anyone in his age group with the only other people who would be able to keep up with him being Rock Lee and Sasuke Uchiha with the sharingan user only being able to do it for a short amount of time before he succumb exhaustion for using chakra to substitute the lack of muscle mass.

He was so good at his clan's style of taijutsu that it meant that no one had seen him use any ninjutsus. What was for certain was the fact that Naruto had a serious battle on his hands this time around and he couldn't any happier as he wanted to test out the new skills that he had developed whilst being inside the snake clan's summon realm. His shinobi skills had improved immensely and he wanted to take the crown of the chunin exam winner whilst showing that he was worthy of the snake clan taking a vested interest in his shinobi career.

"You are a failure; you are in the same team as the rookie of the year and the kunoichi of the year. That means that you were and still are the dead last of your class. It was only fate that you ended up battling Tenten where your wind affinity completely outclassed her long ranged weapons.

Since I don't rely on the weapons as heavily as Tenten does, it will be me who will just prove the fact that whilst you got dealt a good hand by fate, your luck has run out as you will lose against me." The prodigy of the Hyuga clan stated in an overconfident fashion that just oozed out of him.

A scoff was what initially came from Naruto as the words coming out of Neji Hyuga's mouth were just plain ridiculous. How was there something higher up called fate that dictated every single little detail of how your life was going to turn out?

If that was the case then what was the point of him even trying when he was already moving on a set path to a destination? The thought of being unable to take control of your life and just watch it happen from a first person view was just something that Naruto could accept.

Thanks to getting smarter in a recent time, Naruto could assume that there had to be something significant that happened in his early childhood for a boy to shape the way in which he looked at the world, something significant must have happened. That was the same assumption that Naruto used when it concerned Sasuke Uchiha.

"Nothing is set in stone. No matter how much you believe that fate is going to take you in a certain direction, unlikely decisions though will change the course of history. There is always a chance for you to change the future with determination. No matter how bleak the situation looks, if you have determination, anything is possible, even changing whatever it was that screwed you up mentally as a child." Naruto said in an even tone at the start before it changed into a slightly snide comment when he mentioned things close to home for Neji.

This wasn't something that agreed with the philosophies of Neji Hyuga who had lived his whole life a certain way and when someone questioned the beliefs that he lived by, well he took that as a personal insult that he wanted to rectify. "Proctor, please start the match." Neji stated to Genma who could only nod as if he was honest with himself, he thought that this fight that was going to take place right now was going to be the best fight of the tournament, even better than the one between the son of the fourth Kazekage and the heir of one of Konoha's founding clans.

Analysing Neji as he tried to find any weaknesses in his ninja abilities to which he could exploit, Naruto noticed that Neji was nowhere as calm and collected when people spoke to him about sensitive subject than what he was when he was the one asking the questions. That was certainly food for thought for Naruto Uzumaki.

He wasn't going to say anything though to prolong the fight as this was something that he was looking forward to this match very much.

In preparation for what was about to come, Naruto did what any sane shinobi who didn't have great taijutsu that was going against a member of the Hyuga clan who had a sword on their back, that was pull out that sword in preparation for the fight with Neji.

This was an action that made the Hyuga a bit more hesitant in his fighting as he hadn't really fought against people with hand held weapons which could slice a limb off in a single strike before. Sure he had battled with Tenten on occasion but whenever that happened, she always used a bo-staff in their fights which he found easy enough to block.

Now though battling Naruto Uzumaki who had a sword which he couldn't afford to block made his match against Naruto all the more harder as he knew that his opponent wouldn't hold back after he had seen what he had done to Tenten during the preliminary match of the chunin exams.

"Very well then, Hajime!" Genma shouted much to the approval of the crowd in attendance as they wanted to find out the result of this match and whether or not the gaki who used to wear solely orange had improved in terms of skills. He had showed that having Kakashi Hatake as his sensei had done some good for him.

Because Naruto felt more confident in setting the speed in which the battle took place then letting Neji dictate it, the blonde haired boy decided that running at the speed that he showed when battling Tenten as to hopefully make Neji think that he hadn't even improved his speed during the one month break that they had.

Running at Neji, Naruto had his sword in his left hand behind his back as he tried to conceal which move he was going to make. The only reason as to why he was doing this was because the prodigy of the Hyuga clan had yet to activate his Byakugan just yet. It was these small things that Naruto had learnt to take advantage of in a fight as he was taught that one always had to make the most of every opportunity that presented itself before it slipped away.

With his other hand, Naruto slipped his fingers into the shuriken part of his weapons pouch and pulled out a shuriken that was made from high quality metal which allowed elemental chakra to be channelled into it. Thanks to the training he had received which improved Naruto's multitasking abilities; the blonde haired boy parted some of his chakra into the shuriken and threw it at Neji as he continued on his path at the boy.

Despite the fact that Neji did not have his Byakugan activated right at the moment, he still had impeccable eyesight because just like every other person who had a Dojutsu but didn't activate it, the level of sight was increased to levels that civilians could not comprehend.

What this meant was that he easily saw the intended trajectory path for the shuriken and moved the smallest distance required to miss the flying piece of metal which could have easily killed him since it was aimed at his chest and who knows what he could have it.

What Neji definitely did not expect was for his opponent to be able to channel chakra into his weapons. It was something that only chunin were supposed to do and the initial estimation of Naruto stated that this was something that he was not capable of doing.

This underestimation proved to be costly as Naruto's Fuuton enhanced shuriken managed to land a substantial cut on the left bicep of Neji. It was enough to make blood freely visible to people in the crowd as it dripped down the boy's arm.

Realising that he had underestimated the rookie genin who was running at him, Neji activated his Byakugan and quickly slipped into a taijutsu stance as he realised that this match was going to take his full attention whether he wanted to finish this fight without any injuries.

Channelling his chakra into his hands Neji had learnt from his sensei that if a taijutsu user fought a kenjutsu user, they could channel chakra into their body's skin to reduce the cutting effect that weapons had on it. This was not an absolute cure to the problem though as if one had a sharp enough weapon then they could cut through the chakra enhanced skin which meant that Neji had to be on his guard since he realised that Naruto could channel that wind chakra into his weapons.

Bringing his arm back from where it was hiding the blade, Naruto flicked the handle around in his hand making the blade swing at a faster pace thanks to newton's laws as Naruto aimed a diagonally upward strike across Neji's torso. Thanks to the Byakugan that he had just recently activated, Neji was able to see the slightly white coloured chakra that surrounded the edges of the sword in Naruto's hand. It was this that the Hyuga prodigy guessed was used to increase the cutting power and effectiveness of weapons.

To the trained eye of anyone ranked Jonin and above in the stadium, they noticed that Naruto was channelling Fuuton chakra into his weapon which surprised the lot of them as they thought that this was a skill which was far too advanced for someone like Naruto Uzumaki. They wondered just how many other skills that Naruto had that he hadn't yet shown and was saving for a later date.

The white chakra that was surrounding Naruto's blade quickly processed inside the mind of Neji as he realised that even with having chakra enhanced arms, a strike from that sword would be sharp enough to chop a limb or even his whole body apart. The moment that this realisation occurred, Neji changed his tactics and decided that it would be best for him to dodge every single incoming attack from Naruto rather than blocking them.

It meant that he had to use one of his key advantages over Naruto so early on which was something that brought a frown to the face of Neji as he thought that this would be fairly easy match. That being said, the Byakugan user decided then and there that the best thing for him to do in terms of trying to end this match as soon as possible is to relieve Naruto command over the sword in his hand.

If he could do that then he could mount an offensive on the boy through his superior taijutsu thanks to the Jyuuken that he had learnt as a kid and overwhelm Naruto with the **Hyuga Hijutsu: ****Hakke Rokujūyon Shō (Hyuga Clan Secret Jutsu: Eight Trigrams Sixty Four Palms.) **Before this could happen though, Neji had to wait for the most opportune time for him to get inside Naruto's range of motion with his sword and dispose of the weapon.

In case he couldn't dodge an attack from Naruto, Neji took the precautions and pulled out a kunai and wielded it in defence. It was the safe option as Naruto was quite proficient in his sword play. In terms of technique though, Neji was better at his taijutsu then what Naruto was at his kenjutsu since the boy had started his training much earlier in his life.

Not wanting Neji the time to come up with any plan, Naruto continued on his assault using his sword whilst continuingly channelling his Fuuton chakra into the blade and swung a horizontal strike aimed directly at the hips of Neji. The reason behind this is that when you move your body, the last part that moves is the hip area and Naruto was hoping that he could catch the Hyuga prodigy off guard with the attack.

Sadly that was not to be for Naruto as once Neji realised that he wasn't able to dodge the move without sustaining any injury, the black haired boy used the kunai in his hand and blocked the swipe from Naruto which looked incredibly easy thanks to just how light the blade was that Naruto was wielding,

It did not last for long though as Neji quickly realised that his weapon was not going to stand up to the cutting power of Naruto's sword and used the slowed momentum of the sword to jump back and try and find a way to disarm Naruto of his sword as it was becoming increasingly frustrating, Neji decided that now was the time to go on the offensive and deal damage to Naruto even if he had to take some in the process, he was confident in being able to deal more than what he would take in the endeavour.

Sprinting at Naruto at a pace which there being only two other genin in the tournament that could properly keep up with, Neji through the half of the kunai in his hand at the right thigh of Naruto as a distraction. This worked a charm for the Hyuga prodigy who noticed that Naruto shifted to his left to dodge the attack which was exactly what he was planning and allowed Neji a free shot on the exposed arm of Naruto which held his sword.

Unfortunately for the boy who had just gone on the attack, the falling sword of Naruto sill had some of the Fuuton chakra running through it and gave Neji a cut on the forearm. It was not enough to make Neji stop his plan of attack but it was enough to make an annoying feeling of pain run up through his body. Had the match not been as fast paced and as hectic, Neji would have tried his trademark condescending comments to try and draw a response out of Naruto but sadly that was not to be as the blonde haired boy was going at full pace right from the get go.

Aiming directly for the tenketsu that was right beneath the neck of his opponent, Neji knew that he had to deal a significant amount of damage to stop Naruto and also to conserve his energy for his fight in the next match. Not done yet, Naruto was on the receiving end where he suffered multiple strikes to his calves, thighs, forearms and biceps. The point of this in the mind of Neji was to make it so that Naruto was a cripple and couldn't move any part of his body whilst he listened to what he had to say.

Just before Naruto was going to receive a final strike to his wrist which would have prevented him from properly channelling his chakra, Naruto got off an instant **Ninpou: Kawarimi no Jutsu (Ninja Arts: Body Replacement Jutsu) **to get away from the immediate danger which was Neji Hyuga.

This did not come without a price though as Naruto was down on his haunches coughing up blood from the hit to his upper torso and his boy felt like he had just trained for an hour at a high intensity making him tired. Not wanting to have to resort to this as it was his trump card, Naruto sighed as pulled deep into his chakra reserves and found the familiar red chakra and pulled enough of it out of his system to forcibly open up his tenketsus as he had gotten some advice from the Cobra clan on battling a member of the Hyuga variety.

To the sensor shinobi in the crowd, they were worried as there was yet another usage of the Kyubi's chakra running through their jinchuuriki and it was something that was definitely not pleasant at all for their respective mindsets. Because of the fact that Naruto was not using enough of the damn stuff to make it visible to the others, the lower ranked shinobi and civilians in the crowd were unaffected by this change of events and went back to happily watching the fight between two highly talented genin.

Deciding to take a different approach to trying to defeat his opponent, Naruto yelled out the name of a familiar jutsu to those that knew him. "**Ninpou: Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Ninja Arts: Shadow Clone Jutsu!).**" With that Naruto created four clones which set up a diamond formation around Neji whilst the original Naruto was busy trying to regain his breath from the assault that he had suffered from Neji.

When these clones were in position they each pulled out multiple shuriken from their pockets and imbued them with some Fuuton chakra and once that was done the doppelgängers of Naruto through the pieces of metal which could kill someone at Neji forcing the boy into a tight position. That was not to say though that Neji didn't have an effective way of combatting against the incoming attacks.

"**Hyuga Hijutsu: Hakkeshou Kaiten (Hyuga Clan Secret Jutsu: Eight Trigrams Revolving Heaven.)" **Neji yelled out which surprised every ninja in the stadium that new of how the branches inside the Hyuga clan worked as they never once suspected that someone from the lower half of the family would be able to use a move solely taught to the main branch.

None more were surprised at this revelation though were main branch Hyuga's in attendance which included Hinata Hyuga, her younger sister Hanabi but more importantly the head of the clan and Neji's Uncle, Hiashi Hyuga. Even Naruto was surprised as he thought that Neji wasn't going to be able to use this move.

He did not frown or anything when he found out this though, instead he grinned as he realised that this fight was getting even more exciting and it meant that he was going to have to use even more of his skills to win the match.

It wasn't so much that there was a lot riding on this match like the fact that he had to perform for the snake clan and he also had a bet which he used all of the money that he had saved up, but Naruto was loving the thrill of the fight very much and it made him spend more time having fun then trying to take every opportunity that prevented itself.

For Neji though none of these things were running through his mind as he tried desperately to fend off the shuriken that were coming at him even to the point where a few beads of sweat were running down his face. Had it been any other element other than the wind element that was enhancing the cutting power of the metal, then Neji wouldn't find himself in anywhere near as much of a bind as what he was in right now.

In the end though Neji was able to stop the weapons and make them fall to the ground but this was enough of a stalling tactic for Naruto to manage to move over to his sword and pick it up allowing for the boy to properly defend himself once more. Feeling the effects of fatigue slowly creeping up on him, Neji realised that he would have to pull out his other trump card if he wanted to end the match quickly.

The end result was both Naruto and Neji charging in at one another and preparing their final jutsu which would end the match. That was until Neji spotted something in the nearby terrain that would allow him to get the upper hand on Naruto.

A metre behind Naruto and to his right, there was a large tree branch that was out of place thanks to the Fuuton enhanced shuriken that he had thrown which cut up part of the tree. All in all, the mind of Neji Hyuga raced through a plan and just as he got within striking distance of Naruto's sword, Neji pulled off an incredibly quick hand seal sequence and used one of the academy standard ninjutsus.

That was the **Ninpou: Kawarimi no Jutsu (Ninja Arts: Replacement Jutsu.) **Now Naruto was confident that his slash which would have severely damaged his opponent's torso. That was why he was shocked when the figure of Neji changed into that of a tree branch, he didn't see it coming at all.

Using his impressive speed which was able to rival Lee without his weights tied around his ankles, Neji got in position with a direct line of sight to Naruto's kidneys' and stated what would be the final jutsu that he used in the match.

"**Hyuga Hijutsu: Hakke Rokujūyon Sho (Hyuga Clan Secret Jutsu: Eight Trigrams Sixty Four Palms!)" **Neji shouted out with a hint of complacency because of the fact that he thought that he was going to win the fight with this jutsu. He would have won the fight had he been battling any other genin who wasn't a jinchuuriki but luck had dealt a crusty blow to Neji not that he was any the wiser with the situation.

Because of the position that the Hyuga prodigy caught Naruto in, it meant that the blonde haired boy had little to no chance at all to be even able move let alone dodge the subsequent incoming attacks. What this meant that Neji managed to connect with all sixty four strikes. The first two jabs specifically targeted Naruto's kidney and his right wrist which held his sword. The hit to the kidney connected slightly before the hit to the wrist as it was intended to surprise Naruto and make it so that he had less control over the sword which was Neji's main concern as he didn't want to suffer any more damage from that than he already had.

The plan worked a treat as Naruto lost control over the close ranged weapon in his hand it dropped to the ground due to the pain that he was going through right at that time. Neji made sure to stay out of the way of the blade which still had some Fuuton chakra running through it. The moment that the blade lost its cutting edge, it was smooth sailing from there on as Neji who had managed to catch Naruto off guard went about with as much damage onto the personage of the blonde haired boy without hitting anything that could be fatal.

The final strike to this impressive combination of blows to Naruto ended with a double handed open palm thrust into the lower torso of Naruto hitting where the pancreas and kidneys were. As usual Neji was one to channel chakra into his strikes as he caused Naruto some serious pain.

Because of the precise hitting on display from Neji, this was an action that caused the blonde haired boy to start coughing up blood as he lied motionless on the ground. These were signs that Naruto was suffering from some internal bleeding right now and meat that he was essentially defeated.

It was times like these that Neji truly believed that there was such a thing called fate as it allowed him to become the best genin that Konoha had on its roster. It was also times like these that Neji liked to rub in the fact that he was better than who he was battling through the use of condescending and snide comments.

"I have hit 64 chakra points along your body, you can no longer stand. It's painful isn't it? Stay on your knees because before you, is a power that you cannot change and realise that a dead last loser like you is worthless. Having your dreams achieved through hard work and determination is an illusion. Fate is the only constant in life apart from death and it has decided that you will lose your match right here.

Quit continuing right here, I have nothing personal against you; it is just that I was fated to win the chunin exams and you were in my path." Neji stated in his composed yet slightly arrogant tone of voice which made Naruto angry although that anger was not entirely centred on Neji.

It was mostly self-inflicted anger as he wished that he hadn't dropped his guard down to allow Neji that free shot which he surely took. If he hadn't of allowed Neji to take that hit then he would have been able to continue on with this match which he would have eventually won thanks to the fact that Neji was tiring whilst he was not thanks to the Kyubi sealed inside of him. If he was healthy then he wouldn't have to listen to the ramblings of the mentally fucked up opponent that he was facing.

Despite the situation that he was in at the moment, Naruto was hoping that by possibly stalling for time during his fight with Neji, he might be able to find a way for him to regain some of his motor function which had been stripped away thanks to the strikes on his tenketsus.

"Why if you're this strong, with eyes that can see everything, do you mentally attack everyone who tries hard to make their life better than the hell that they live in? Why do you put down people who have hope that their future can change into something better just because you yourself have lost hope that things can change?" Naruto questioned and by the visible tick that was in the eye of the Hyuga prodigy, it seemed that the blonde haired boy had definitely struck a nerve with that remark.

With the closing of his eyes and the deactivation of his Byakugan, Neji held a smirk on his face as he felt kind of good that he got to bad mouth the main branch of the Hyuga clan directly in front of Hiashi whilst there were tens of thousands of people in the stadium able to hear what he had to say.

"All right, fine if you're going to go that far, then I will tell you..." The moment that this finished, Naruto slowly managed to get to his haunches still trying to catch his breath "The Hyuga's destiny of hatred."

Thus it was the start of the tale as to why Neji Hyuga hated the fact that he was born into the lower house of the Hyuga clan whilst his sister who had done nothing to warrant her status as a main branch member was promoted as the clan heir. "The Hyuga main family has a special ninjutsu that has been passed down throughout the generations; a special ninjutsu which is… a Juuinjutsu.

The curse of the mark represents that of a bird trapped in a cage. It is the symbol of being tied down to an inescapable destiny." It was at this point in the story of Neji's rather harsh upbringing that he untied the shinobi forehead protector which was situated just above his eyes. The result of this was for Naruto to notice the swastika symbol in black markings which had little hooks on the end of the talons.

"One day when I was four years old, I had this horrible Juuinjutsu seal carved into my forehead. That day, there was a grand ceremony that was taking place in the hidden leaf village.

A shinobi leader from the hidden village of Kumogakure; place which had been warring with the leaf for many years had arrived to sign an alliance peace treaty. At this ceremony which everyone attended, including everyone from genin to Jonin, one clan was missing. That was the Hyuga clan.

This was because said day was a momentous day for the clan as the Hyuga clan heir turned three years old… Hinata-sama's third birthday." The moment that these words came out of Neji's mouth, the boy sent a direct look towards the VIP section which the main branch had booked and stared solely at Hiashi who returned his gaze without even moving a muscle. The small silent stare between the two allowed for some of the more perceptive people in the audience the chance to see the true colours of the relationship between the uncle and nephew.

"My father Hizashi Hyuga and Hinata-sama's father over there in the VIP section were twin brothers.

When the first born daughter of the head of the clan turned three years of age, I was turned into the bird in the cage through this curse all because of the fact that I am a member of the branch family."

This was a situation that was starting to sound all too familiar for Naruto as he vividly remembered the torment that he had suffered growing up all because of a seal that every adult in Konoha knew about. If there was one thing that he didn't want to happen was for any other people in his home who had to suffer the same type of upbringing as he did. "Why is that necessary? Why do you need that Juuinjutsu sealed on you? Is it just to distinguish the main and branch families?" Naruto questioned as there was a slight bit of emotion in him indicating to anger as he tried desperately to keep control over his emotions exactly like the snake clan had taught him to do.

With a sigh coming from his lips, Neji knew that he would have to explain the other reasons for the seal and that was why it was he who spoke next. "This stain on my forehead I more than a simple decoration. This curse seal is the absolute fear of death given to the branch families by the main family. With a simple secret hand seal, the branch member's mind can be instantly and easily destroyed leaving them a mere husk of a human being. On the other hand death is just as easily done as mental retardation. This curse will only disappear after the death, sealing up the ability of the Byakugan along with it.

The Hyuga house is a clan that holds a great bloodline. There are those that try and steal the secrets from the clan. This is what the main family hide behind as they use this jutsu to control us branch families into complete servitude with the only mission of protecting the secrets of the main family. Absolutely no disobedience is allowed by the main family.

It is an effective system which was created to ensure that the bloodline of the Hyuga clan is kept safe, which, until a certain incident occurred where my father was killed by the main family!" This was a statement coming from Neji that a lot of the people in the audience who were of civilian origin did not know and caused them to gasp in horror to find out that one of Konoha's clan was so barbaric that they would kill one of their own family members.

Ensuing from the proclamation coming from Neji was a massive amount of talking going on between the civilians as there was a new light painted on the fact that the Hyuga clan wasn't as pretty as the clan liked it made out to be.

This was definitely not want the clan wanted to hear as they were people who relied a lot on the civilians of Konoha who they kept up a good relationship. If the civilian populace changed their minds on the clan being a group of people who were barbaric enough to kill their own kin, then surely their share prices would fall and make the clan nowhere near as wealthy as what it once was.

It was right here in this moment that Hiashi, who was initially thinking about telling Neji the truth about the unfortunate events which led to his father's demise, chose to instead not tell Neji and instead give him a rather _stern _talking to once this tournament was over.

Unperturbed by these recent developments that were happening in the crowd, Neji continued on speaking about some of his past which he wouldn't normally do especially in front of a massive crowd like he was now, but there was just that something about Naruto that released the insecurities that he had when it came to his past. "One night Hinata-sama was kidnapped by someone. Then Hiashi-sama quickly took off to take care of the situation and killed the kidnapper. It was dark and he was wearing a mask… who do you think it was that kidnapped Hinata-sama?"

Now thanks to the all of his recent social and psychological development over the past six months told the blonde haired boy that right now, it was not the time to say anything as it was a rhetorical question asked by the Hyuga prodigy. Indeed it was as Neji continued from his break in speech.

"He was the Kumogakure ambassador who had just signed the peace treaty between the two hidden shinobi villages! It became clear that he was here after the Hyuga secrets all from the beginning but the cloud country, with one of their leader's killed in the failed plan made demands of Konohagakure breaking the alliance between the two nations.

This of course meant that the leaf and cloud villages bickered back and forth and it even came to the point where a war almost broke out between the two shinobi nations. With Konoha though wanting to avoid going to war because we were still weak from the Kyubi's attack, Konoha made a backdoor deal with Kumogakure to prevent a war from occurring."

Even though Naruto had come to terms with the fact that he wasn't at fault for anything concerning what happened on the night of the Kyubi's attack, he still felt a lot of empathy for people who had suffered from that fateful night. The moment that Neji opened his mouth and started speaking once more, his attention was back on the prodigy of the Hyuga clan.

"The hidden cloud village wanted the Hyuga main family's bloodline, the Byakugan so they demanded the corpse of Hiashi Hyuga and Konohagakure agreed to their wishes so that war was safely avoided… thanks to my dad who was killed by the main family to replace the corpse of Hiashi Hyuga because my father and he were both identical twins.

To escape this horrible curse, there is no method apart from death. They were twins, their strength was virtually the exact same… One born first and the other born second, destiny was decided just like that and this fight, your destiny was decided once I became your opponent.

Your destiny is to lose to me, that there is no doubt." Neji said and as he finished his lecture he tied his headband back around his forehead covering up the mark of shame that he didn't like to be reminded of.

For Naruto who was watching this occur with the best seat in the house, he was humbled by what Neji had said and he realised that whilst it was definitely a different upbringing, there were people out there who had suffered just as much as he had during their childhoods and this brought to mind a picture of his rival who he knew had suffered a lot as well.

It was right there and then that Naruto made the silent vow to himself that he would do everything in his power when he became Hokage to get rid of this curse inside the Hyuga clan and make it so that no child would have to go through the same pain as what Neji had to go through. He know knew that Neji wasn't just sprouting shit out of his mouth just because he was arrogant and thought that the world revolved around him and him alone.

No instead Neji had suffered through a large amount of psychological abuse as a child and it had mentally scarred him with this being the result. He hoped that he could bring Neji out of his problem as Naruto definitely thought that behind all of the pain, there was a definite great friend there who needed him just as much as he needed him.

"I don't know how much it hurt when your father was killed because I am an orphan, but… thinking that destiny is all decided because of that is a huge mistake!" As the words were coming out of his mouth, Naruto could instantly see this as something that the previous version of him before his transformation into a proper shinobi would say.

Angered by the fact that he felt that his opponent didn't know anything about pain and suffering, Neji charged at Naruto with the intent to end this match whilst in the process, severely injuring Naruto as well. As he was charging in, the black haired boy had one thing to say to Naruto. "You could never understand the pain of being branded with a symbol that you could never get rid of yourself!

This was all going according to plan for the young prodigy of the Hyuga clan except for one thing. During the time of the speech, Naruto had stalled long enough for him to recover enough so that he could tap into an odd source of chakra that he was getting used to using more often as time went by, that was the chakra of the Kyubi no Kitsune. "Unfortunately Neji, I can." Naruto said with a sad expression on his face as the moment that he heard those words come from Neji, he had visions of his harsh childhood that he wouldn't want to wish on his worst enemy.

Before Neji could land a strike on the boy who was still crouched down on one knee, Naruto's quickly placed themselves into the tiger hand seal as he started channelling the chakra of the fabled giant fox demon throughout his body opening up all of the tenketsus that Neji had blocked off with his previous attack.

The resulting explosion of the Kyubi's chakra around Naruto was enough to send the Hyuga prodigy who was only about a metre and a half away from Naruto back in the direction in which he came from without his consent. It even managed to give the boy a rather harsh burn on his leg from where the chakra of the Kyubi directly touched his skin.

Thanks to the chakra running through his body, Naruto was able to move at a speed which rivalled that of Neji and Lee when he had his weights taken off. The first thing that he did was that he ran over to where his sword was laying on the ground and the moment that he grasped a hold of the weapon, it seemed to come to life as Naruto unconsciously channelled the Kyubi's chakra into the weapon whilst also converting it into Fuuton chakra.

As Naruto's left hand picked up the sword, the boy known as Naruto Uzumaki used this time to pick out multiple shuriken with his right hand from his pocket and threw them at Neji. The moment that they were just about to leave Naruto's hand, the blonde haired boy channelled the combined Fuuton chakra from the Kyubi inside them which made them even more deadly.

Thanks to the large amounts of chakra running through them, they were now able to easily slice through trees and they even managed to cut through the stone keeping the stand up. Well a quarter of the way before the acidic chakra of the Kyubi melted the shuriken and they fizzled out into the nothing.

Unfortunately though for Naruto, the new form of chakra streaming came with a downside, which was due to the giant fox demon's influence, the winds around the flying pieces of metal allowing Neji to see where he would have to move to not sustain any damage from them.

This gave Naruto the chance to run up to Neji who was too busily dodging the shuriken and land a blow which would end the match. You see Naruto knew that he had to prove to Neji that his way of thinking was better and the only way how he could break the cocoon that Neji had surrounded himself in was to cause him some serious damage which would give the Hyuga prodigy enough time to think things over during his visit to the hospital.

The way how Naruto did this was via piercing the skin of Neji right through the right hamstring of the boy. Since Naruto did not have a good control over the Fuuton element, let alone when adding into the equation that he was using the Kyubi's chakra to power this attack, the cut into the thigh muscle of Neji was jagged and rough which definitely made the pain that the boy was going through all the more excruciating.

"Ahhhh!" Neji screamed out in pain as what he was going through right now was easily the worst injury that he had sustained throughout his entire life as a ninja. The burning sensation which was coming from the wound was so painful. It was as if it was burning his leg from the inside out. That was not even counting in the fact that he had a bloody hole in his leg!

Jumping back when he felt the familiar feeling of sword going through skin and muscle, Naruto knew that this match was over. Even if Neji was able to move, the boy wouldn't be able to move to standard which would allow him to fight on even terms with a rejuvenated Naruto thanks to the Kyubi's chakra.

"Proctor, I believe that this match is over." Once that was said Naruto turned his attention to Neji who was lying on the ground.

"I failed the graduation process a total of three times on my way to becoming a ninja… but you know what the one thing that stuck with me through this whole time? It was my determination to make a change for the better.

That is what you lack. Nothing in life ever comes easy and the things that you want the most are the things that you have to work the hardest to achieve. I as your friend vow to help you get rid of the Juuinjutsu that plagues your clan but I can't do it alone and I will need your help Neji." As these words were coming out of the mouth of Naruto, the Hyuga prodigy had an epiphany in what he was supposed to do with his life. This was to do with right at the time this happened, there was a bird that flew over the head of Naruto and it allowed Neji to see the error in his views.

Still, there was a tournament going on and there was a badly hurt competitor on the field, who if not treated soon, could lose his limb. That was why Genma Shiranui called an end to the match. "Winner of this match is Uzumaki Naruto!" the senbon sucking special Jonin announced in a loud voice to the crowd which was met with a rounding sound of applause as the crowd, civilian and shinobi alike thought that they had watched the best fight of the tournament, even including the fact that Sasuke was about to go up against Gaara next.

The moment that this happened, there was a member of the ANBU black ops wearing a cream cloak signifying that he was a captain and came into the centre of the arena and picked up Neji before anything else could happen.

Naruto was too busy to notice this as he was wrapped up in the fact that he was getting a standing ovation from the crowd as it was something that he didn't think that he would get this soon in his career. It was a truly moving moment for Naruto as he had never received praise like this before from people that he didn't know. He was use to their scorn, this was a new experience for Naruto Uzumaki and he wanted to saviour it as much as he could.

Not wanting to ruin the moment by acting like a class clown which was how he used to act all of the time, Naruto instead just put his left right hand up in a waving motion to the crowd as his left hand put his sword back in its sheath and walked back to the competitors area.


	21. Now that shes

**Author's note: Due to reviews concerning about the conversation between Naruto and Neji, I will clear a few things up. The reason why I put the conversation is because there will be a change in personality for Neji compared to what happens to him after the fight in Canon.**

**To show this change I had to change what Naruto said to get the change in Neji. I am sorry that it might have seemed like filler to get the next chapter but it was necessary. **

**Also concerning the fight, Naruto still has very little experience which is why Neji was able to catch him off guard. Also, the way in which he did it that time was much harder for Naruto to get out of compared to the situation in the manga.**

* * *

><p>Everyone in attendance who had just watched the match were cheering their hearts out and it didn't even matter that Naruto was the person who reminded them of so much that they had lost thirteen years ago during the attack of the Kyubi no Kitsune.<p>

They had just watched one of the most impressive matches ever seen at a chunin exam and to the civilian kids in attendance, all they could think about was how cool both Naruto and Neji were during their fight. The parents of said kids didn't even bother to curb the enthusiasm that their progeny had as they too were engrossed with how well the fight had gone.

Just from that fight alone they believed that they had gotten their money's worth in terms of the prices to get into the stadium and have a seat. If this was what the kid who graduated from his class with the lowest grades was could produce, then their optimistic thoughts ventured to the fact that the next fight which was going to be one between the rookie of the year from the same year as the competitor who just put on one hell of a show and the son of the fourth Kazekage. This was not even including the fact that the boy was the heir of not only the Uchiha clan but also he was the only loyal descendant of Madara Uchiha who was one of the people who helped create Konoha.

If all that wasn't enough, then for overkill said descendant of Madara Uchiha was going to go up against the youngest son of the current Kazekage who was said to be apart from the Sandaime Kazekage, the only Kazekage in history able to subdue the Ichibi no Shukaku. This wasn't even countering in the fact of just how good of a shinobi the boy was.

Up until his match in the preliminary rounds against a genin from Konoha called Rock Lee, he hadn't even been hurt in a fight before and his mission record was impeccable with him not even having received a scratch on his body even though he had completed 9 missions with one of them being B-ranked. If the fight between Naruto and Neji was good, which it was, then there the hope that the fight between Sasuke and Gaara was going to be even better.

To Sakura who was watching the match from her vantage point sitting next to her number one rival for the affections of Sasuke, she was impressed with what she had seen. Although it was nowhere near the standard that her Sasuke-kun was capable of producing, it was still pretty good considering the fact that it was Naruto who was the dead last of her graduating class whilst she was the person that got the highest scores in not only her graduating year but also in the recent history.

Whatever that red chakra that Naruto had access to and used liberally during his fight with Neji was something that she was afraid of. It looked as if a monster was trying to come out of Naruto and rip everything in sight to shreds. What was that strange power that Naruto was using? And how evil was it because it gave off that same feeling of when Naruto used that jutsu to knock Shikamaru unconscious in a mere matter of seconds.

Then there was the fact that Naruto had managed to get his hands on a sword and paraded around as if he was the best damn swordsmen in Konoha. He was so confident in his damn abilities with the sword that he didn't even bother to use any ninjutsu. It seemed that the moment that Naruto got strong he became incredibly cocky in that he would think of others beneath him, just like what he did with her when he told her that he didn't care about her, Sasuke-kun, Kakashi-sensei and the team as a whole.

The funny thing was that this was what Sakura had interpreted from what Naruto had said but it wasn't what he actually stated. What he said was that she did not care one bit about him and neither did Sasuke by the look that he was giving Naruto at the time. It was this, which made Naruto think that why should you bother caring for people who don't care about you back?

This new Naruto wasn't one that she liked at all because he wasn't the same Naruto that would always act as her rebound when Sasuke did not want to go out with her. Sakura's confidence right at the moment was substantially lowering as there was no Naruto in her life to boost her confidence by asking her on dates.

That and during their month long set of missions, Naruto hadn't been following Sasuke like he normally used to do where he would eventually subside and follow Sasuke thanks to her fists. No he was distancing himself from the two of them and that could affect the team's chances of getting another C-rank mission. She personally didn't necessarily mind this fact but because her Sasuke-kun always wanted to prove himself as a shinobi, she knew that this was just not acceptable. When these exams finished, she was going to have to have a chat with Naruto and tempt him with the offer if he went back to how he used to act, she would highly consider going out on a date with him as long as he stayed that way at least until Sasuke and her got their promotions so that they could leave their team.

**Hinata**

Sakura was not the only female from her graduating class who was reshaping the way that they viewed Naruto Uzumaki. Hinata Hyuga. As she was sitting with her teammates Shino Aburame and Kiba Inuzuka, Hinata admitted to herself that the Naruto she once knew and loved had definitely changed and did not look as if he was ever going to go back to the happy go lucky idiot that she loved and admired.

This new Naruto was one that she didn't like that well since he had caused serious harm to her cousin. He had stabbed Neji straight through the leg with his sword. This was definitely not the Naruto that she knew; the Naruto she knew would give Neji a few punches and then win through some unpredictable strategy.

The raw brutality that was on show was not something that Hinata Hyuga was used to as apart from the kidnapping incident, she had practically lived her whole life wrapped in bubble wrap to prevent any kind of damage to her whether it be mentally or physically. Sure Hiashi Hyuga could be very emotionless and cruel, but when it came to his daughters, there was not a more protective man who did what he felt best to prepare his girls for the future.

This was the first time that the heiress to the Hyuga clan had seen blood on such a large scale and it nearly made her physically ill. It was also shocking to Hinata that Naruto didn't seem anywhere near as concerned about this fact as she did. If Naruto wasn't horrified by this than it meant that he had seen stuff like this before and there was a high possibility that her beloved Naruto-kun had actually killed someone.

Immediately, Hinata dismissed the thought of that because that was just something that the spiky haired knucklehead ninja would not do as he would always try and find a way to end things with a peaceful outcome. It was one of the things that she loved about him.

The moment that this tournament was over she was going to go to her sensei Kurenai and ask for some advice on what she should do about her crush on Naruto. The boy was changing too much far too quickly for her liking and it was not the Naruto that she fell in love with.

**Hiruzen Sarutobi**

For Hiruzen Sarutobi who was sitting in arguably one of the best vantage points in the whole stadium to watch Naruto vs Neji, things weren't looking good for the professor of Konoha as he was almost about to have a heart attack as it was if he was watching a younger Orochimaru fight in the body of Naruto.

Naruto was carrying himself in the exact same way that Orochimaru did, he used the same sword movements, the same clothing that he wore as a teenager and the scary part was that Orochimaru and both Naruto had the same elemental affinity. What this meant was that the former Konoha ninja could teach Naruto all of his deadly jutsus involving the Fuuton element. It was not stated as the deadliest elements for nothing as there were no real other uses to wind except for killing people.

How had he failed to not notice all of the similarities between Orochimaru and Naruto? He had been blinded by the fact that Naruto was such an overly happy person in life that he forgot about all of the not so positive emotions stored inside of the sun kissed blonde.

It looked as if that Naruto had already been converted into a believer of his former student and that was just not acceptable. This was because there was no chance in hell that Anko would ever bother to teach somebody what she learnt under her sensei through the apprenticeship. There was a snowflake's chance in hell that she would teach it to a mere genin, so that was out of the question.

The only other logical explanation was that Orochimaru had someone inside of the village that befriended Naruto and offered to give him shinobi training when no one else would as that was one thing that the boy desperately wanted more than anything else. _No doubt during these training sessions this person taught Naruto how to use the hebi kenjutsu style._

The fact was that the style of swordsmanship that Naruto used was one that nobody knew of as Izuna who was always viewed in the shadow of his elder brother as he preferred to use long range attacks rather than close range attacks. The same could be said for the Nidaime Kazekage who preferred to use his Fuuton jutsus since they were so deadly.

What this meant was that a lot of people were led to believe that the kenjutsu style was one solely developed from the ground up by Orochimaru rather than the hebi clan where it actually originated from.

Even Hiruzen was one to go with this thought as he watched the slow progression of Orochimaru with the style and with him constantly reading books on swordplay. Had his prized student learnt it at a much quicker rate compared to everything else that he had learnt, Hiruzen might have thought that he was getting training from some outside source. That was not the case however as whilst Orochimaru was touted as a genius, this was only in the area of ninjutsu and not widespread across the ninja arts as many liked to think. Instead it meant that the black haired teenager had to learn how to use a sword all through hard work instead of just learning it the first go which was how he normally did these things.

From what skills Anko-chan had, it was clear that his former student didn't even bother to teach her how to use a sword. What this meant that if Orochimaru had taught Naruto it, then he valued him very highly and would be expecting for him to change the team in which he played for and join the snake traitor fairly soon.

To Hiruzen this was just unacceptable as Naruto was Konoha's greatest asset if the village ever went to war as he had the potential to be the strongest shinobi in the world thanks to the fact that he had the Kyubi no Kitsune sealed inside of him. If Naruto could control it to the same level in which the younger brother of the current Raikage, then he would instantly become arguably the strongest shinobi that Konoha had at its disposal.

This was why the world could fall into so much chaos and tyranny if Orochimaru ever managed to gain control over Naruto, there was just too much at stake.

This was not even counting the fact of who his biological parents were and what would happen if he ever got his hands on their techniques and combined the rasengan and the Hiraishin with the power of the Kyubi, well Naruto could become the closest thing that anyone would ever get to equalling the sage of the six paths who managed to create the moon all by himself.

Though the worst thing about this situation was not the fact that Orochimaru had gotten his fangs into Naruto, it was the fact that Hiruzen had allowed for Naruto to become that easily manipulable. Had he done what Jiraiya had wanted which was to raise Naruto outside of Konoha, then the blonde haired son of Minato Namikaze would certainly have been a loyal shinobi of the hidden leaf village.

It filled the aging man with a deep sense of regret and self-loathing as he knew that whilst he did a lot of things for Naruto, there was a whole lot more that he could have done to prevent the life of the orphaned son of the Hokage a better life, one that his parents sacrificed many things for Naruto to have with the end result being that they gave their lives.

And despite all of this, how did he repay their faith in that Naruto would have a normal life? He allowed for Naruto to become socially ostracized which led to a whole host of psychological problems for the boy.

Even though he had done nothing to deserve the trust of Naruto, the boy still believed in every single word that came out of his mouth to the point where if Hiruzen asked for him to commit suicide, then the boy would do it, just to please the people that he loved.

Despite how he cared for the boy immensely, if the talk between the two that they were definitely going to have after once the chunin exams were over, the Sandaime Hokage knew that he was going to do what he should have done to Orochimaru all of those years back, if Naruto didn't give him the answers that he wanted, then the necessary actions would have to be made to ensure that the power of the Kyubi not Kitsune did not fall into the wrong hands.

If that meant that he had to sanction for the Kyubi to be taken out of Naruto resulting in the orphan's death just so that it could be put into a new host to ensure that Konoha had control over the strongest of all of the Bijuu's then so be it. The needs of the many outweigh those of the few.

**Orochimaru**

As these thoughts were running through the mind of Hiruzen Sarutobi, the third Hokage that Konoha had had, the person who was sitting right beside of him who was impersonating the Kazekage had a completely different set of thoughts running through his mind. _How does that Kyubi gaki know my kenjutsu style…? I made absolutely sure not to teach it to Anko-chan and even if I did, there would be no way that she would want to teach anyone anything that I taught her after what I did for her._

_This is something that I certainly haven't taught anyone, not even Kabuto so that must mean that there is only one available conclusion. That is that the hebi-clan must have taught him. _This was something that Orochimaru was highly concerned about as it meant that they had found a successor to him.

He knew that he had always been treading on this ice ever since he started conducting his experiments on humans. They had told him that they wouldn't support him if anyone went found out about it. From there on the relationship between himself and the clan that had trained him in how to use kenjutsu were slowly drifting apart as he was becoming more and more determined to unlock the secrets of immortality. To anyone else looking on, this was descent of Orochimaru into madness.

Then it came to the point where Orochimaru decided that what he wanted, no needed was to have the same powers of the sharingan so that he could copy every single jutsu to help him in his quest for immortality and knowing every single jutsu.

Because the snake clan had a very deep sense of loyalty to their summoners, they did not want anyone desecrating the memories and families of their clan members, not even people from within the clan itself. That was why when Orochimaru started doing tests on the corpse of Izuna Uchiha to see if there was some way that he could inject the DNA of the man into himself so that he could obtain the sharingan, shit hit the fan and there was a major fight between Orochimaru and the rest of the snake clan.

The resulting argument resulted in a fight where practically the head of every sub branch fought against Orochimaru at the same time but they could not hand a killing blow thanks to the fact that their summoner was just too good of a shinobi. Talk about hindsight in that they could have prevented this from happening, had they not trained him to be as good. It was their pride in wanting to make Orochimaru better than Jiraiya so that they could brag about it with the toad clan.

All in all what this boiled down to was that the snake Sannin had come to the conclusion that they had chosen the boy who had the nine tailed Kitsune sealed inside of him as the one who would succeed him. It came without a shadow of a doubt in the mind of Orochimaru that there would come a time where they would order dear little Naruto-kun to come and kill him so that they could get their hands back in the possession of the legendary Kusanagi blade.

It would probably be a good idea if he used the confusion of the upcoming war to send someone to go and kill the boy and make it look like an accident to save himself the trouble. With that in mind Orochimaru had to go over and revise the plans of the invasion inside of his mind because he knew that to kill the gaki, he would have to deal a lot of damage thanks to the Kyubi sealed inside of him as he knew a lot about the regenerative powers after having discretely studied the previous jinchuuriki.

**Sasuke**

Thanks to the fact that his sensei had felt decided to leave for the stadium just that little bit earlier than what he had originally planned, it meant that the last remaining loyal member of the Uchiha clan that Konoha had was able to watch the ending to the fight of his teammate and the only other person from Konoha that might be worthy of him testing his capabilities on.

What this meant was that Sasuke Uchiha was able to watch how Naruto moved with his sword although he was too far away from the action to be able to copy the movements with his sharingan. Not that he wanted to learn whatever crappy kenjutsu style the dobe was using because it was bound to be shit.

What he was able to see though was the fact that Naruto himself had some hidden power that made him special. Not as special as himself now that he had the power which that strange man gave to him as a gift who, was then identified as Orochimaru of the Densetsu no Sannin.

To think that the kid who graduated with the lowest marks in recent history was able to improve this much in such a short amount of time, well it both scared and motivated Sasuke to train that much harder so that the gap between him and Naruto at least stayed the same if not widened rather than how it was gradually closing with their being nothing that he could do about it.

How was he ever going to be able to go up against his brother who was the pride and joy of the Uchiha clan when he couldn't even get stronger than the dead last who was catching up on him? This was a question that put a lot of doubts inside the mind of Sasuke as Naruto was his testing block and if it was taking him longer and longer to defeat Naruto, then he wasn't improving as fast as he could be. If that was the case, then there had to be something for the Uchiha boy that he could in which he would get much stronger, quicker.

It was times like these that that offer from Orochimaru to get proper training from one of the _Densetsu no Sannin_ didn't sound that bad at all. He was an S-ranked shinobi on the same level of his brother, if there was someone who could train him better, then he did not know that they even existed.

**With Naruto**

The walk up the stairs to the competitor's arena was one that allowed the blonde Uzumaki time to reflect back on all of the changes that he had made to himself in the past six months from his graduation of the Konoha academy into a fully-fledged shinobi. The main thought that was going through the mind of Naruto was that the boy did not believe that he would have been able to earn the respect of the Konoha populace as well as what he had just received just then, had he not changed into a more mature person.

If he was running around still with the hyperactive streak in his body whilst wearing an ensemble consisting of practically only orange, then he didn't think that people would be as impressed with his display as a shinobi. They would probably think that the fight was a fluke and he just got lucky. If that was the case then Naruto would be even angrier as it seemed that in the eyes of the public, all of his hard work and dedication to improving himself as a shinobi had been for nothing in terms of gaining the recognition as a Konoha person that he so desperately craved.

Taking a look up into the competitor's box, Naruto saw a slightly insane look on the face of the only other jinchuuriki in the nearby vicinity. It was at that instant that Naruto knew that what happened to Rock Lee was only a small taste of what was to come for Sasuke. _Oh well, that's not my problem, Sasuke's attitude needs a serious kick in the nuts so to hopefully get him down from the clouds and on the normal ground._

That was what Naruto was thinking until he realised that Sasuke was the last of the Uchiha clan which were a powerful clan, powerful enough that if given time, they could seriously help Konoha into a land of prosperity that had not been seen since the start of the third great shinobi war.

Because of the fact that there was only one left in that being his teammate who he didn't care one bit about anymore after what had happened inside the forest of death, Naruto begrudgingly decided that he had to tell someone higher up to warn them about what Gaara was planning on doing to the Uchiha heir.

On his way up the stairs he noticed that there was two people in front of him with their backs turned against him, wondering what the hell this was all about as there was a rule that only shinobi competing were allowed in the halls, Naruto waited by to see what their motive was.

"Stop!" they shouted in unison although Naruto knew that they did not know he was there as their attention was on someone else, just the way Naruto liked it as he liked it when people underestimated him just so that he could prove them wrong.

"These low level tournament fights such as this, the chunin exams are great for the rich people to bet on and that is why many of the ministers are here, to win some money. That is why you have to lose this fight your just about to enter." At the end of their speech Naruto instantly deduced that whoever they were talking too was either Gaara or Sasuke although he assumed it was Gaara as Sasuke would rather go for the flashy entrance rather than the sedated one which the jinchuuriki of the Ichibi no Shukaku chose.

Not even bothering to reply to their question, the cork on top of Gaara's gourd burst open and hit the face of the unsuspecting chunin who was over confident that he and his friend would be able to stop Gaara from entering the fight. This didn't even bother the son of the current Kazekage at all as sand started flowing outside of his gourd at a fast rate rushing towards the two Kusagakure ninjas. They could not do anything as because Gaara was getting more and more irritable, the amount of demonic chakra running through his pathways was getting larger and larger as time went by allowing the boy to have greater control over the sand surrounding him.

Horrific screams was what Naruto heard next as the sand encased the two chunin ninjas who had no time to escape given where they were situated. What this meant was that Naruto had front row seats to watch Sasuke's opponent murder the two ninjas in cold blood as blood went flying around as if it was water underneath a ninja with a Suiton affinity testing out jutsus.

Admittedly after that brutal display in front of him, Naruto was a bit unnerved even though his beginner lessons in controlling his facial expressions from the snake clan allowed for him to mask this emotion. Gaining reassurance that whatever happened, the demon sealed inside of his stomach would be able to help him out, Naruto walked forward towards Gaara. This was done with his body tensed as he prepared himself for a possible confrontation with Gaara. As he was walking closer to Gaara, Naruto could feel the effects of the Kyubi's chakra trying to make its way to the surface and forcibly enter itself into the boy's chakra pathways as it wanted to fight the Shukaku right there and then.

The moment that they met each other side by side, Gaara uttered some whispered words that only Naruto could have heard, even if there were other people around to listen in to their conversation. "After I have killed your teammate, I will kill you next as mother is calling out for your blood Uzumaki Naruto."

Not being one to be intimidated as he clearly remembered from Manda-sama that the mental side of being a shinobi was just as important as the physical side or the chakra side of it. "If you were saying that to someone else, then they would be scared of you, even some Jonin would be. Unfortunately for you, you entered the jungle of the sleeping king cobra and awoke it which means shortly, you will have to face its full wrath and fury." Naruto said with a straight face as he was pleased with himself as if there was one thing that he was new to in the shinobi world, that was that he was new to smartly insulting someone rather than the crass way that he found normal.

Not even bothering to stop and confront Gaara, Naruto continued on walking as he went to the stands where he could meet his sensei and tell him about the impending annihilation which was about to come.

As Naruto was taking his time walking up the stairs to where his sensei and future former teammate were, the blonde haired boy heard the crowd go wild which Naruto deduced as them not wasting any time at all when it came to getting the match between two genin who had a lot of potential. From what he could hear, it was fairly clear to Naruto that Sasuke was the shinobi who had the upper hand right at that moment. This meant nothing to the son of the fourth Hokage though as he knew that Gaara obviously not going at full speed or otherwise there would be screams of terror filtering into his ears as the civilians and lower level shinobi came face to face with one of the Bijuu.

Just as got up to the top of the stairs, Naruto saw that Sasuke was moving at an incredibly fast pace, one that Naruto knew that he would not be able to keep up with without tapping into the demonic chakra running through his body. What did surprise Naruto though was that his sensei was not the only sensei standing with some of his genin comrades. There was the sensei of his most recent enemy Might Gai.

The thing that made Naruto smirk and let out a small chuckle though was the fact that Gai was not wearing his trademark green shinobi spandex suit. This filled Naruto with pride as he remembered the bet that his sensei had with the guy where Kakashi had a lot of pride in his skills as a shinobi. This was what reminded Naruto of the fact that since he won the bet, his sensei promised him that he could allow Naruto more chances to see Karin-chan once again.

Instead of the green spandex which constantly made women make judgements concerning the sexuality of the elite Jonin, Gai was now wearing only his chunin flak jacket which was not zipped up. What this meant was, was that Gai was giving a free show to all of the women in the nearby vicinity a free show on his stomach. Judging by the looks on their faces as they could not take their eyes of his incredibly toned body, they definitely liked what they saw, some even deciding that after this was over, that they might go and ask the man out, just so that they could feel his muscles.

It was then that Naruto saw the painful reminder of just how bad the life of a shinobi could unfortunately be as the blonde haired boy saw the depressed state of mind that the student of his sensei's rival's student just by his posture and the way he was leaning on the crutch. He didn't have to see the facial expression on the face of Rock Lee to know what was going through the mind of the boy.

It made Naruto realise that life wasn't as permanent as he thought that it was as it made him realise that the people he cared about could suffer just as bad if not worse. The only thing that made it not as bad in the eyes of Naruto was that thankfully he did not know Rock Lee on a personal level.

Unfortunately there was a spot inside of Naruto that didn't want to see Sasuke get so seriously damaged mainly because of the fact that the boy had lived an incredibly hard life already through the death of his parents at the hands of his brother. If something like what happened to Lee happened to Sasuke, the last Uchiha would probably just become a walking husk of a person.

"If you want Sasuke to have to live, then you are going to have to end this match right now Kakashi-sensei." The blonde haired boy stated as he made his presence known which meant that everyone in the nearby vicinity chose this moment to stare at the boy who had just beaten the prodigy of the Hyuga clan.

To say the least, Rock Lee did not know what to think as he knew the person who he had been striving so hard to beat for as long as he had been in the academy had been beaten by someone else, it was a severe blow to the boy's pride as he wanted it so that it was he who was the one who beat Neji. What made it worse was that Naruto was the student of Kakashi who was the eternal rival of his sensei.

What this meant in the eyes of the green spandex wearing boy was that team Kakashi had yet another one up on team Gai as Kakashi won the last bet between the two sensei's which in the end meant that Gai-sensei had to get rid of the beloved youthful green spandex.

It was a real kick in the teeth and a blow to the pride of Lee. It wasn't bad enough that he was crippled enough that he couldn't be a shinobi anymore, but the people around him were flaunting the fact that they had completed what he had set out to do, which was to beat Neji.

Seeing what had been made of Lee and the subsequent painful state that had left Gai in, Naruto decided that it was probably the best time for him to do what he had initially come up the stairs which was for him to tell what was going to happen to Sasuke. The reason behind this wasn't necessarily because he wanted Sasuke to live, it was actually because he looked up to Kakashi-sensei and he knew that he cared about all three of his students

"Kakashi-sensei, if you want Sasuke to reach his fourteenth birthday, then you will want to end this match right now." Naruto stated to his sensei who was surprised that Naruto was here; admittedly he thought that Naruto would be recovering from his fight with the Hyuga prodigy. "Hmm Naruto-kun, it seems that whatever it was that you did during the one month certainly paid off as you have definitely have improved as a shinobi.

I am sure that since you improved so much in such a short space of time, then you must be easily able to realise that other people could improve just as much, just as quickly. Just keep watching and you will find out why we were so late." Kakashi stated with a lot of confidence and pride in his teaching ability as the amount of improvement that Sasuke had done was outstanding for a genin.

This was a statement that made the blonde haired boy scoff because he knew that no matter how much his hopefully former teammate had improved, Naruto knew that Sasuke would not be able to defeat Gaara. That was why Naruto let out a small scoff.

Unfortunately for Naruto, the son of the fourth Hokage, Naruto did not know that Kakashi had near impeccable hearing what his blonde haired student. "What was that Naruto hmm?" Kakashi stated with a questioning eyebrow directed at Naruto as he was now not staring at his Icha Icha book in his hand.

"There is only one possible way for Sasuke win and that has nothing to do with whatever it was you taught him. Whilst what you taught him will allow him to live a lot longer in the fight, If Gaara gets absolutely serious, then Sasuke will die, no matter what." This was definitely not what Sasuke's biggest fan girl Sakura who was in attendance wanted to hear.

Whilst she did know that Naruto had greatly improved as a shinobi over the past six months, Sakura believed that Naruto was still a class below her pride and joy Sasuke as the boy who could do nothing wrong. This still did not mean that Sakura had total confidence in the fact that her crush was going to win her match after the display that Gaara had given when he fought Lee and crushed his arm and leg.

"Oh yeah!" the pink haired girl shouted in defence of Sasuke as she wanted everyone to know that her Sasuke was better than Naruto. "Sasuke could easily kill you Naruto-baka, just you wait until Sasuke-kun defeats this Gaara schmuck, then, the whole crowd will get to watch how Sasuke is rightfully the rookie of the year whilst you are still the dead last orphan who won't amount to anything."

Now the only female apart of team seven would never normally be anywhere near this harsh but there were some factors to her outburst against Naruto. On the one hand, she was nervous in that Sasuke could eventually be not as good of a shinobi as Naruto. This was because her blonde haired teammate was rapidly and I mean rapidly progressing as a shinobi and, if given enough time could become stronger than her love. The other reason as to why the pink haired girl was so harsh to Naruto was that, she believed that he had betrayed the team during the forest of death when Naruto mentioned to Iruka-sensei that Sasuke-kun had that weird seal placed on him by Orochimaru.

The response to this from everyone in the crowd was for them to start laughing as it had been a past time for the village to laugh at the son of the previous Kyubi jinchuuriki just because he had stigma unwillingly put on him at birth. For Naruto, this was more painful for him compared to what Sakura probably intended to as it brought up memories of the past which he certainly did not wish to think about.

It also brought up a painful conclusion for Naruto in that despite the fact that he had greatly changed as a shinobi, the people of Konoha still had not yet warmed up to him and would probably not do it for a long time yet.

The moment that Kakashi had heard the statement from Sakura, he immediately came to the conclusion that team seven was never meant to be a cohesive unit for the village of Konoha. Despite first glances at team seven which heavily linked them with the team that the Yondaime Hokage taught along with the team that turned into the Densetsu no Sanin, there was a difference between the two.

That was the fact that the dead last was actually catching up to the kid who had been hailed as a prodigy so fast that it drove the team dynamics apart. This was in conjunction with the fact that the "knucklehead" was not afraid to voice his opinion and since he was getting stronger really fast, they had to value his opinion.

Not really knowing how exactly the blonde haired son of his sensei would handle that comment as it was one that affected Naruto much more than what it would, had it been directed at someone else, Kakashi hoped nothing bad happened. He was wrong though.

There was a flash of anger and also betrayal in the eyes of Naruto Uzumaki as he stared directly at Sakura as she announced that she did not like him at all. This was something that both Gai and Kakashi noticed as they were the only Jonin in the area and immediately got prepared without anyone seeing in case that had to intervene during the commotion going on between the two members of team seven.

That anger and betrayal was shortly hidden by a mask of neutrality as he walked down the steps to where Sakura was seated at a civilian pace, stopping once he got within kissing distance of the girl. "Did you know one thing that hasn't changed about my personality Sakura, which is that I love to insult people who I don't like and you have now just entered that list. Originally thought you were just a nuisance in the forest of death, but now I have come to realise that you are just a pathetic piece of trash." Naruto spoke loud enough for everyone in the nearby vicinity to hear although not loud enough to detract attention from the fight going on down in the arena between Sasuke and Gaara.

This was a statement scared Sakura as she had never seen Naruto fight back and she definitely did not know what to do. The same could be said for all of the people in the crowd who had not made Naruto have a healthy life as they had never seen the "demon boy" fight back. It made them hesitant to think what he might do in the future.

Continuing on from where he left off, Naruto started his tirade into Sakura. "The difference between now and then though Sakura is that my vocabulary has drastically evolved over the past few months which means that I can attack you easier and deal much more damage.

No wonder your parents had a divorce, what kind of respectable father would be proud to have a daughter whose sole goal in life is to drop everything and become a foetus factory for a boy who wouldn't even love you as his only goal apart from killing his remaining family is to produce as many kids as possible to recreate the Uchiha clan.

Have you seriously thought that through? Do you know how much this village depends on the sharingan Dojutsu? Your perfect little fantasy where you marry Sasuke and have one or possibly even two kids will never happen! The Hokage will eventually force Sasuke to impregnate as many women as possible if you somehow manage to convince him to not which would never happen in the first place.

That doesn't even begin to count in the fact that no strong male shinobi who wants to have a family and also has enemies, would want to get in a relationship, let alone marry you." It was at this point into the destruction of all of Sakura's beliefs that a lone tear ran down her eyes as the water works were just about to start it seemed.

"How would he ever feel content knowing that the moment that he leaves Konoha, there could be an assassin sent to kill his children? If he was married to someone who could not only defend themselves but also others as well, then he would rather go for them than the pathetic excuse for a kunoichi in front of me.

I mean seriously! You say that you have the best chakra control in the village but what good does that do when you don't even have any offensive jutsus to make your opponents weary of facing you?

You say that you know a medical jutsu which can heal injuries but all that says is that you are only a help once all of the damage has been done. How would your husband look at you if one of the kids suffered a fatal injury which could not be healed by my medical ninjutsu? The only thing running through his mind would be _why shouldn't I have married someone who would be able to prevent my kids from seeing the harshness that life could provide just like I had to see?_

Another thing though is that why would Sasuke choose you to be his wife if he constantly has to worry about hurting you because you are so frail from your lack of shinobi training? Do you know what other conclusions that this can lead to?

What it means is that without your physical training, you wouldn't be able to keep up with your husband in more ways than one. I know personally that I would rather have a girl who could last longer in bed than some girl who would be asleep from exhaustion before I even get an erection." This was something that both Kakashi and guy nodded at as that had had their fair share of civilian women over their sexual life and kunoichi were definitely better in the sack in their mind.

"Your just a pathetic piece of trash who should just give up on being a shinobi because you added no value whatsoever to team seven as it was always me and Sasuke who completed the mission whilst you just provided emotional support for a third of the team. I know for certain that if I was a parent I wouldn't want my child to go into the shinobi world inadequate to handle how hard it is, then I would be disappointed in her.

I guess that's why your parents divorced, you didn't live up to their expectations and they wanted to detach themselves from you before you went out and got yourself killed on the battlefield so that they didn't have to deal with as much pain." As this was said Naruto narrowed his eyes into a very familiar look that Kakashi had seen as recently as a month ago when he was facing off against the snake Sannin Orochimaru.

It was this that made Kakashi pale in realisation as to how similar this Naruto was from the previous one compared to the blonde, orange tracksuit wearing Naruto compared to a young Orochimaru. He was definitely going to have a chat with his student when the chunin exams were over.

Combined with what would become a patent glare in the future, Naruto released some killing intent directed mostly at Sakura. Because he was so close to her, it felt as if she was facing down a giant red python which was about to swallow her whole and slowly kill her via stomach acids. It was this which was why the genin ninja promptly fainted.

"That was taking things too far Naruto, you didn't have to go into that much detail about Sakura, especially about her parents, which I know for a fact is not the way in which they broke up." Kakashi stated as he did not like what Naruto had just done as it was taking things too far.

Because of the fact that he had been dealt a whole lot of punishment from Sakura over the years, Naruto did not have any regrets for what he had just done. "All I did was just give Sakura back all of what she gave me throughout the academy and during my time as a genin. The only differences in being that I dealt it out in one go rather than over a few years and that I chose a mental attack rather than a physical one like she used to constantly dish out." Naruto stated to which his sensei still did not approve of what he had just done but nonetheless subsided his questioning.

With his curiosity though piqued by his sensei's son who had just recently stated that Sasuke was going to die in this battle, Kakashi wanted to know why Naruto thought that way. That was why he subsequently asked Naruto to deliver his opinion.

Happy to indulge his sensei, Naruto spoke up, "it's because Gaara is not a genin level shinobi; he is an upper chunin who could possibly get a promotion to special Jonin if he wanted to. The only reason why he hasn't been promoted is because his father wants to show off how strong Sunagakure are as a nation and he is going to do that through Gaara.

If Gaara was given the proper time to prepare for his ultimate technique, then I am fairly confident that not even you would be able to defeat him Kakashi-sensei.

Unless Sasuke Uchiha is the true heir of Madara Uchiha, he will die tonight." Naruto stated as he let the last sentence hang in the air for all to hear and no one liked what Naruto had said at all.

This was mostly because of the fact that the fear of Madara Uchiha heavily rang through even until this very day and no one liked to mention the leaf village's greatest traitor. It was essentially like he was he-who-must-not-be-named. Hearing the fact that Naruto was comparing said man to the boy who the village had been pinning all of their hopes on to deliver them into a wealth of prosperity which no village in any timeline had seen before was something that they did not like one bit.

What only Gai and Kakashi got out of that statement though was that Naruto was referring to Madara Uchiha's ability to control the tailed beasts through his evolved form of sharingan. It was this that made Kakashi widen his eyes in realisation the moment that this information was processed he remembered one of the very few conversations that he had had with his deceased father about Sunagakure.

That was that the Ichibi no Shukaku had implanted the ability to control sand bestowed upon his jinchuuriki so that it could protect itself from any danger. The comparison to these abilities was uncanny with what the boy fighting Sasuke had to offer and it made Kakashi realise that Gaara was a Jinchuuriki. This startling realisation was one that the silver haired man did not like at all. He certainly did not want Sasuke to suffer the same fate as Rock Lee as he knew that the end result would be even more disastrous. At least mini Gai had his naïve optimism and exuberance to keep him going through this tough ordeal. If Sasuke was in the same situation, after having suffered everything at the hands of his elder brother, well here was a very high chance that Sasuke might kill himself.

Knowing what was about to come as he knew that Kakashi-sensei would try and get the match called off and an official inquiry done into why a jinchuuriki was allowed to compete in the exams, Naruto tried his best to placate his sensei. "You don't have to worry, Kakashi-sensei, that guy Genma down there will stop the fight before anything serious happens and then it will be my turn to fight Gaara." As the words came out of the mouth of Naruto, the blonde haired boy watched how Sasuke let off his trademarked **Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu (Fire Release: Grand Fireball Jutsu).**

"During my training in the month off, I never once trained in the hopes of defeating Neji." This was a statement that definitely brought the attention of both of the members of team 9 as they had initially thought that that was what Naruto had done due to his fighting style shown during his match with Neji.

"All the time during my training I had the one goal in mind, that was to learn everything and anything that would help me in not only defeating Gaara but also subduing him to the point where he could not harm anyone else." The blonde haired boy stated to which reaffirmed in the mind of Kakashi that Gaara was Sunagakure prized jinchuuriki.

It was also the word "subdue" and Naruto saying that Sasuke needed to be the true heir of Madara that made Gai realise just what exactly his prized student Lee had to deal with during the preliminary exams. This set an even higher amount of pride that Gai felt for his student as he knew that if he was at the same age and tried to defeat a jinchuuriki, things would not have been as kind to him as they were to Lee.

What Naruto had just said did alleviate some of the pressure that Kakashi was feeling although he did not calm down and relax as he even lifted his headband up to make sure that he saw everything happening in this fight. That was because he wanted to make sure that what happened to Rock Lee was not a reoccurring event.

Seeing that his eternal rival had his sharingan visible meant that he should probably put all of his focus onto the match that he had admittedly had his attention on the boy who had beaten his genius of a student which he had thought of as incredibly unlikely.

Turning around to watch the fight, the elite Jonin was definitely shocked when he saw that Sasuke was standing on a wall preparing a certain, specific jutsu which was definitely not one that a regular chunin let alone a rookie genin should know. With this in mind, Gai had a frown on his face as his attention was solely on Kakashi as Gaara, down in the middle had encased himself in a sphere of sand which protected him from every direction. As this was happening, he had his third eye on the outside so he could see what his opponent was planning on doing.

"Despite who he is battling in this fight, it was still irresponsible for you to teach him the chidori." Gai said as he knew just how much pain it could cause to the user had they not perfected the technique as watching Kakashi himself come up with the technique.

Ino, who was sitting right next to the formerly conscious form of her former best friend was curious to high as to what technique Sasuke-kun was using and with her gossip genes running high, she asked, hoping to find out the answers. "What's that move that Sasuke-kun is using? You can even see the raw chakra coming off of his hand!"

It wasn't Kakashi who answered though as it was his eternal rival who was uncharacteristically serious at the moment. "A single stab.

But it is… the leaf village's number one ninjutsu master's sole original technique." This was something that made Naruto frown as he wished that his sensei would have taught him something unique to him but he knew that there were circumstances that could not be met during the month for Naruto to learn something like that.

Not knowing what was going on inside the mind of Naruto, the elite Jonin who normally wore spandex clothing continued on from where he left off. "It's a technique that is solely meant for assassination, the speed of the thrust and the great amount of chakra heightens the flesh so that it can pierce through literally anything.

Because of the noise it makes which sounds like a thousand birds coming directly at you, it was given the name _**Chidori!**_" Gai said with seriousness as he wanted to portray just how deadly this technique was.

Knowing the other meaning for the word chidori, Ino spoke up in a questioning tone of voice. "Lightening edge?" this was a question that made Gai nod as he decided that he should tell them a little bit about Kakashi's backstory.

"Yes, the chidori or as it is also known, the lightning edge was a nickname that it was given when Kakashi managed to cut a bolt of lightning falling from the sky with this technique that Sasuke is using right now.

The true name is the chidori as it is known for its stabbing speed that pushes the limits of the human body and the huge amount of chakra that is focused into the arm. That arm then becomes a blade which is capable of cutting through anything." Unable to leave a dig at Kakashi out of it, Gai said one last thing before stopping. That was "What a truly ridiculous technique it is though."

Being someone who was able to insult others easily, Kakashi bent down and whispered into Lee's ear, "Like he should talk… right Lee."

**With Gaara**

Inside the sphere of sand, Gaara felt a warm sensation running down his left shoulder. This was a feeling that he did not like at all. That was why he asked the only source of information that did not lie to him about what it was. "What's this warm stuff… AHHHH! BLOOD! MY BLOOD!" Gaara shouted out as he had never had felt the feeling of being in pain before. The sight of his own blood only compounded onto the emotional stress that he was going through right at that very moment.

For Sasuke, who still had his hand in the sphere, he felt something pulling on his arm and he had no idea what it was. Knowing that it was better to be safe rather than sorry, he pulled his arm out. What he did not expect though was for there to be something on the inside that gave a resistance in trying to rip his arm clean off his shoulder.

Recharging the jutsu that had inflicted so much pain onto Gaara, Sasuke dealt even more damage as the hand was still lodged into the pectoral muscle of Gaara as he channelled the lightning chakra through it.

As he was pulling his arm out, he did not expect to drag something else along with it. That was one of the arms of the Ichibi no Shukaku although Sasuke had no idea what the hell it was.

As this was happening, Gai and Kakashi had their hearts in their mouths as they wished that it was not the transformation into the Ichibi right in the middle of the stadium although they did not have high hopes. Thankfully though the injury that Gaara had sustained at the hands of the sharingan user, was enough to make it so that the incomplete transformation was cancelled.

It was right at this time though that there were feathers falling in front of everyone who was in the arena. This was targeted at all of the civilians so that they did not interfere with the intricate plan that Kabuto and Orochimaru had set out to complete.

Gai and Kakashi were easily able to detect the presence of the genjutsu and subsequently released it from their personage. What was surprising though to Kakashi though was that Naruto was just as ready and was already in the process of removing the genjutsu from himself.

The moment that this happened, there was a massive explosion on the outskirts of the village wall. It was the signal to the fact that the invasion of Konoha by Sunagakure and Otogakure had just begun. It was a place where heroes would be made and where heroes would die.


	22. back from her soul vacation

The sounds of explosions that were going off in the background were ones that Naruto was not used to hearing although going by the looks on the faces of Kakashi-sensei and Gai-sempai, it was clear to the blonde haired son of the fourth Hokage that they knew exactly what was going on at the moment.

In an unlikely sense, Kakashi was somewhat grateful that Sakura had been heavily knocked out by Naruto from his killing intent as it meant that she would not have to suffer through the horrors of war. Whilst he did not want Naruto to have to go through the same thing, Kakashi at least knew that Naruto was much better equipped to deal with what was about to come.

Seeing that Sasuke was getting orders from Genma to go and fight the Suna siblings and prevent the plan which was presumably to unleash a transformed Gaara onto Konoha, Kakashi knew that he had to send Naruto out there to help him because the only real counter measure that they had was Tenzou and he was nowhere near in sight.

As this was happening, Kakashi and Gai were fixated on the fact that it seemed that Orochimaru was the linchpin of this coordinated assault on their village as they could see him holding the third Hokage hostage. Unfortunately for them they did forget that there were enemy shinobi right in front of him who wanted to take out as many people who lived inside the walls of Konohagakure.

The first two Otogakure shinobi who lunged at Lee, after having decided that he was a target because they knew that he was a shinobi, even if he was injured, had the same metal gauntlets which Dosu from the preliminary finals. Because Otogakure had nowhere near the same depth in their military force as to what Konoha had, the men sent out to destroy the civilian population at the chunin exams weren't high class shinobi. Sure if they were in a village like Kirigakure or Iwagakure, then they would have received the rank of chunin.

That was not to say though that they had any more experience in the life of a shinobi as say Naruto did. This was one thing that the blonde haired boy was gratefully appreciative of as he lunged forward with the intent of saving Lee and giving the boy a chance of living until someone with great knowledge on medicine could heal him.

Thanks to the fact that his chokuto sword was incredibly light weight, Naruto was able to change its angle solely with finger movements. It was this that allowed Naruto to keep it by his side as he dashed forward and extend it into the right position when he needed to.

That was exactly half a second later as Naruto dived and subsequently tackled the green spandex wearer in mid-air with the intent of not hurting him. This was all done with his right hand as his left was pointing the sword into an opposite direction from where one of the Otogakure shinobi was charging at him from. All of this was done whilst channelling Fuuton chakra into his sword to make the cutting power that it possessed all the more deadly.

Due to the pace that this man was running at, there was not enough time for him to stop as he collided stomach first with the chokuto in Naruto's hand which was being enhanced via the Fuuton chakra running inside of it. Had Naruto not been channelling the wind chakra through the sword, the weapon wouldn't have made it past the thick armour that the man was wearing but thankfully for Naruto he did and it allowed him to make a relatively clean cut through the abdomen of the sound ninja.

Shocked that his best friend had just gotten impaled by the sword of a little boy, it didn't take long for the sound chunin to launch his axe in a downward motion as he intended to lop off the head of one Naruto Uzumaki right off.

It was then that a gut feeling entered Naruto and the blonde haired boy immediately realised it was that of his instincts which were telling for him to move to the side. Not taking anything for granted now that Konoha was in a state of war with Otogakure as well as Sunagakure, Naruto also brought his blade up to block the incoming attack.

To do this though Naruto had to pull his sword out of the man's stomach which he had just impaled and bring it up to defend himself. This all had to be done in such a short amount of time that Naruto just did not have. It was here where teamwork was a wonderful thing when done to perfection as the green spandex wearing boy used his right leg which was not destroyed at the hands of Gaara to launch into a powerful kick right into the man's kneecap.

Hitting it from the outside in made it bend in a way that it was not meant to. What this did was that it made it essentially impossible for the sound shinobi to keep his balance. It also meant that it was impossible for him to keep his axe's trajectory on target for Naruto's throat.

Taking advantage of the situation put in front of him, Naruto continued swinging his sword in the direction of his enemy. Thanks to his sword being incredibly light weight though, it meant that Naruto could change the angle in which the blade would hit the man with just a few finger movements.

With a reverse slice enhanced by the wind chakra running through the blade, the blonde haired boy made full use of the chokuto's slicing design as his blade went through the stomach of the man. When it hit the spinal column though, the blade stopped as there was not enough force behind the blade to propel it through the other side of the man's stomach.

This did not concern the Kyubi's jinchuuriki though as he knew that the damage had been done and that the sound shinobi would not be waking up ever again. Pulling the blade out of the enemy, it was to no surprise that the normally silver blade had now essentially turned to a crimson red colour.

As this was happening, both Kakashi and Gai were fighting off their own opponents with ease as they watched the tag team duo of Naruto and Rock Lee with pride. To see their two students display the will to work with one another was a nice moment. The only thing that they wished for, was for their other respective male students to be willing to work with other shinobi.

Had Naruto and Gai been in true danger, both Kakashi and Gai would have gone to help their students. When they saw that they both managed to handle the problem aptly, they turned their attention back to the sound ninja in front of them. Whilst they did not particularly like the way that Naruto had finished the fights, they could not deny that it was an efficient way of handling the situation.

"Now Naruto you are going to have to listen up carefully. This is the first time in your career as a ninja that you are going to have an A-ranked mission." The silver haired man stated as he helped the boy up, whilst watching out for anyone else trying to attack him. Thanks to Gai who was covering for the three of them, they needn't worry.

The immediate response for Naruto was to go wide eyed as he struggled to process the information inside of his brain. Genin were never sent on A-ranked missions. So why was it that he was being assigned one? It just didn't make any sense. The other thing running through his mind was what consisted of an A-ranked mission? How big was the chance that he was going to get seriously injured doing so? The probable thought was that he was definitely going to get injured in some manner.

In the end though, this did not matter as the village was in a pinch and he had an able body. As long as the people that he cared about were safe, then he would go to the ends of the earth to make sure that they did not have to see violence. The last part was primarily directed at a certain red haired girl for some reason even though he had no idea why.

"The first thing that I need you to do Naruto, is to make a clone and have that clone take Lee here over to the hospital as he is injured. This is because he can help out if the situation is desperate enough for him to be needed. The other reason is that the doctors there can also make sure that his injuries that he has, do not get any worse." This certainly did not seem like an A-ranked mission in the mind of Naruto. The blonde haired boy though had the common sense not to state the obvious in a situation like this. It was obvious that there was at least another part to the mission. There was even a possibility that there was a third or fourth part to the mission. Whatever it was, he was going to try and complete it to his upmost best.

"The real part of the mission is this: Sasuke has just gone in pursuit of Gaara and the two other Sunagakure Genin. Naruto, you are to track down where Sasuke is. From there you are to provide support and if need be retreat to a safer position. Knowing Sasuke's personality, this will be hard but I have faith in you." At this point Kakashi brought the kunai in his hand to his finger so that he could get enough blood which was required when using a summoning contract. "I am concerned that Sasuke has bitten off more than he can chew. I am sure you know what I am talking about, don't you Naruto." Kakashi continued on from where he left off.

This was indeed something that Naruto was aware of because out of his age group, Naruto believed that he, was the only one capable of defeating in a no holds barred match between the two. The blonde haired boy was about to ask whether or not he should wake the others up. It was then that Naruto realised that Kakashi had asked for him to do this solely for a reason.

It was obvious to Naruto that had he woken the others up, not only would he have lost some valuable time chasing down Sasuke, but he would also have lost a lot his sense of remaining hidden. He was the one out of the 12 genin that had any experience being stealthy thanks to all of the pranks that he pulled off when he was younger.

Nodding at what his sensei had just said, Naruto went through the hand seals and made five clones of himself in the shadow variety. As Naruto was going through hand seals, Kakashi himself was going through his own and at the end of it; he planted his blood smeared hand on the ground. "**Fuuinjutsu: Kuchiyose no Jutsu! (Summoning Arts: Summoning Jutsu!)**

Despite knowing what said jutsu did, Naruto did not have a wide eyed expression on his face for nothing. The thing that he was wondering about was which clan did his sensei have a summoning contract with? In the end though, Naruto did not have to wait long as he found out that Kakashi-sensei had a summoning contract with the dog clan.

"This guy, Pakkun here, will be able to track down Sasuke via the scent that he produces." Kakashi stated. As he was doing this, the silver haired Jonin was indirectly giving the brown haired dog the mission. This subsequently achieved a nod from Pakkun.

Just before anything could happen though in terms of getting on with the mission, there was a man in racing up behind Kakashi with the intent to kill the sharingan warrior. Before he could warn his sensei about the impending danger, there was an insanely fast green blur that not even Naruto could track as he watched it decimate the Otogakure ninja attacking Kakashi from behind.

Only was it a second later that Naruto discovered that said green blur was his sensei's eternal rival Might Gai. With the force that only Gai could create without the use of chakra, the elite Jonin punched hard enough so that the sound ninja went directly through the stadiums outer wall giving Naruto, Lee and Pakkun a path out.

The first to go were the five Naruto's and the injured Lee. The moment that had happened, the real Naruto sent a look to the dog beside him. Nodding at the questioning look that the blonde haired boy had sent him, Pakkun jumped out the whole. This was an action which was quickly followed by Naruto.

Thanks to Naruto having home grown stealth skills, which Naruto told to Pakkun, it meant that the dog could take him via a quicker. This was because it meant that Naruto would be able to hide himself from the ninjas. If he was with say Sakura and Choji for instance, they would have to compensate their clothing choices and lack of manoeuvrability into the direction they were taking.

It was thanks to the crimson top that Naruto and black ANBU esque pants that he was wearing which allowed for this to not be an issue.

This combined with the fact that Naruto was substantially faster than both Sakura and Choji put together, they did not have to cut any corners in getting to Sasuke.

**With Kankuro**

Realising that they would not be able to keep the distance between himself, his brother and his sister with the oncoming Sasuke, the puppet ninja decided that he would fight Sasuke himself so that he could by some time. Stopping on a branch and taking his puppet which was still on his back, Kankuro placed it down on the tree branch in preparation for the upcoming fight.

Not even a minute after this was done, Kankuro found his intended opponent Sasuke Uchiha. What he did not expect was for there to be someone else who was going to battle him. "Sasuke, you keep going. I'll deal with this guy." The member of the Aburame clan stated to which Sasuke nodded as he wasn't interested in fighting the puppet user. Only after his fight with Gaara was over with him being the victor, would he consider fighting someone else.

This did not stop the boy though from making a snide comment to Shino. Sasuke said this just as he was leaving to continue on towards where Gaara and Temari were. "Humph, by the time that I finish up over there, I'll come back and finish this fight for you.

**With Temari**

Running through the forest along the tree branches, the mind of the fan wielding Temari was pacing in and out. It wasn't until she heard her youngest brother call out to her. "Temari, put me down."

Not wanting to question the orders of her little brother because he could tear her to shreds in a shinobi fight if he wanted to, Temari did as she was asked and placed Gaara down on the tree branch. _The Shukaku inside of Gaara is about to awaken! I've got no idea when it's going to fully emerge! _The blonde haired girl thought to herself. She didn't want to be the only person around when that beast came out to play!

The Sunagakure ninja was about to leave though when she heard the voice of her younger brother. Wondering what it was that he wanted, she turned around and what was she met with? Temari got greeted by her brother who was slowly beginning the transition into a jinchuuriki form. The way how he did this was via a slap to the chest. Had it been solely done by Gaara alone, it would not have hurt so much for Temari, sadly though, that was not the case.

This was because Gaara had some of the Ichibi's chakra running through his network. The added power that this brought to his hits, was enough to make his older sister go flying into a tree. "Just get lost. Mind your own business!" Gaara shouted out as his backhand collided with his sister.

The moment that Gaara regained some semblance of mind, there was a shift in the air. Sasuke Uchiha had arrived onto the battlefield and he was read for battle. Once again, would he go up against the son of the Kazekage. This time though, he would be doing it where there was nobody around to call the match off if one was going to lose.

**With Naruto**

Running on to the scene where Gaara was fighting his teammate Sasuke, Naruto noticed that he was on a tree branch face first into the ground. The same could not be said about Gaara though as he was in the process of getting up from whatever attack that Sasuke had used on him.

Seeing the impending danger that Sasuke was in as Gaara was launching himself at the Uchiha clan heir, Naruto sprinted as fast as he could so that he could deflect the incoming blow. Using a makeshift shoulder charge as his weapon, Naruto hit the Sunagakure ninja with enough force to make him have to take an unintentional detour.

Using the time that this manoeuvre had provided, Naruto checked on Sasuke and realised that he had severe chakra exhaustion. The blonde haired boy guessed that this was from using the lightning move that Kakashi had taught him recently too much. From the looks of it, Sasuke would only be a hindrance from now on as he could not provide any help.

This coincided perfectly with his mission to retrieve Sasuke Uchiha and retreat to a safer distance.

As he did with Lee, Naruto created clones to take the struggling to stay conscious Sasuke back to the Konohagakure Hospital. The moment that he turned around, Naruto was greeted with a snarling Sabaku no Gaara.

Not liking the fact that his prey had been taken away from him just before he was about to finish him off, it was safe to say that the red haired boy was not a happy camper. Not wanting for this prey to escape him like the last one did during the preliminaries, Gaara made a dash to the Naruto clones.

Going through hand seals as quick as he could, Naruto let off a powerful wind ninjutsu in the hopes of preventing Gaara to get his hands on Sasuke Uchiha. It would definitely be a shame if Konoha lost its most precious bloodline today. "**Fuuton: Daitoppa (Wind Release: Great Breakthrough.)**"

Because this was a jutsu that was very powerful for its rank, when the excessive winds came into contact with Gaara, there was damage. Snapping a tree trunk as he careened into it with a lot of force was just the beginning of the fight between Naruto and Gaara. It certainly would be an interesting match for anyone to watch if they were good enough to not get hit by any stray jutsus. Jinchuuriki definitely did not disappoint when they went up against one another in the open world.

In his haze clouded mind, the sand ninja eventually realised that for him to be able to kill Sasuke, he was going to have to go through Naruto first. It was obvious that there was no other way. That was just fine in the mind of the red headed boy. On his list of people to kill, right behind Sasuke Uchiha was Naruto Uzumaki because of that strange but yet all too familiar power that he had been displaying against his opponent Neji Hyuga.

Thanks to the time that he had created for himself, Naruto pulled out his sword and prepared for what was about to come. If he could whether the initial onslaught of Gaara in his jinchuuriki form, then Naruto was confident in that he could slowly start to turn the favour with him coming out on top.

With the thrill of an upcoming fight with Naruto Uzumaki, Gaara was psyching himself up. Not that he really needed it though as he was someone who was always looking forward to fighting quality opponents.

Because of his unstable mind and the type of personality that the Shukaku had, it meant that the demonic chakra running through his pathways increased in amount. What this meant was that it initiated the next part of Gaara's jinchuuriki transformation which was to go into a full body mini Ichibi. The only part of his body that wasn't covered in sand was his feet from the ankles down. He had even grown a tail at the base of his spine. One of the only constant things though was that Gaara had blue markings on top of the sand

Not even using any hand seals, the red headed boy initiated the start to the fight by launching a jutsu at Naruto. "**Sunaton: Suna Shuriken (Sand Release: Sand Shuriken.)" **The way how this jutsu was used was that Gaara gathered sand all along one of his arms and concentrated it heavily. When he felt that it was ready, he would swing his arm in a horizontal direction releasing the clumps of sand at the enemy.

And he did just that as he flung about 10-15 hardened clumps of sand at the enemy. Doing his best, Naruto dived as quickly as possible from the tree branch that he was standing on, onto the ground. It was not to say though that Naruto was one who was able to get out of his without taking a hit though as he got hit in the shoulder.

With it being his right shoulder, it allowed Naruto to still use his sword which was in his left hand for balance. The pain though did not change, no matter where it hit him. One thing that was for certain was that if Naruto got hit, he would definitely feel it. That he did as he crouched in the bushes, surprised with how much pain he was in at that current point in time.

Unfortunately for Naruto, his training was mainly getting him up to the standard levels for a chunin. The snake clan had to choose in that Naruto would either focus in offense or defence. No doubt that later on, the boy would learn some defensive jutsus, but at that current point in time, it was better for Naruto to be an offensive orientated shinobi. If push came to shove, then they could at least rely on the healing ability provided by the Kyubi to cover for Naruto.

The next thing that the blonde haired boy did was tantamount to all of the mental training that Naruto had done in the near recent past. Coming up with a plan that combined his incredible ability to think on his feet in even the direst of situations, Naruto put his plan into action.

Placing his sword back in its sheath, Naruto went through the hand signs of a jutsu that was almost second nature to the boy. _**Kinjutsu: Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Forbidden Jutsu: Shadow Clone Jutsu) **_Naruto mentally said to himself as he did not want to give away his position to Gaara.

What Naruto did not know was that because the Sunagakure shinobi wasn't exactly in a calm state of mind, it meant that he couldn't properly search for Naruto. Even if he was in eye sight a moment ago.

A moment later the first clone that Naruto had made went into the line of sight of Gaara getting the boy's attention. Just like Naruto, the Sunagakure genin was someone who had little to no shinobi experience in what he was doing right now. Pretty much, every other time that he fought, he had Shukaku's shield there to protect him. When in his miniature Ichibi form, he did not have access to that and had to rely on himself.

Seeing the copy of Naruto in front of him, Gaara used his sand infused arm to deal a devastating blow to the blonde haired boy. Unfortunately for Gaara, things did not go as according to plan as he wanted them to.

Thanks to having great control over his chakra compared to where he was say six months ago, Naruto could actually make the clone which did not have a body. Using this in his plan, the Naruto clone had the body less clone which had made go about a metre in front of him.

What this did was that it made Gaara think, in his haze induced mindset that the fake clone was the real one. Thus Gaara attacked the one in front of him with a wide hook, delivered by his right arm. It was to his surprise that the attack went straight through the body and carried on its intended path.

What this allowed to happen, was that it allowed for the Naruto clone behind Gaara to dive under the outstretched arm of the genin and plant a kunai into his chest. This was not just a fruitless attempt for Naruto just to get under the skin of his opponent; it was actually a part of his plan. Naruto had actually wrapped an explosive tag around the handle of the kunai. The moment that it was lodged into the sand of Gaara, the Naruto clone channelled all of the chakra it had inside of itself into the seal.

The resulting explosion did a lot of damage. It dispelled the clone of Naruto although that wasn't saying much at all though. What it did do though was that it softened up all of the sand surrounding the torso of Gaara. Now, from the little shinobi training that Gaara had had, he expected for the next attack aimed at him was going to go for the same spot where the previous damage had been delt. He was wrong though as Naruto had already thought that this was what Gaara was going to think.

That was why Naruto had to think of something else to catch the jinchuuriki of the Ichibi no Shukaku off guard. The way how the blonde haired boy had chosen to do that was via an indirect route. The second clone that Naruto made jumped up into the air directly above Gaara and went through some hand seals. Once they were done, Naruto brought his hands up to his mouth and exhaled a Fuuton jutsu. "**Fuuton: Fugadan no Jutsu (Wind Release: Drilling Air Bullet Jutsu)**"

Gaara did not hear the call out until it was far too late for him to get moving and dodge the incoming attack. This was because of the smoke and dust that was surrounding him from the previous attack. The moment that this attack connected, there was a howl coming from the slowly transforming Gaara as he did not like the pain that he was in one bit. The attack did enough damage to get rid of all of the sand covering his head and neck. What it didn't do though was go any further from there and attack the skin of Gaara.

The combination of the whisperings from the Ichibi and the attack from Naruto made Gaara's head hurt really badly. This was just what the blonde haired boy was counting on as the real Naruto finally made his move.

Having come to the conclusion of where the only weak spot on Gaara's new form was thanks to the lack of sand, the snake summoner made the most of the opportunity in front of him. Jumping up from the shrub from which he had situated himself in, Naruto lunged at the back of Gaara whilst taking his sword out of its sheath. Using the sword for the specific reason it was made, which was to slice rather than jab, Naruto prepared the blade for what he was about to do next.

That was to cut the Achilles heals of his Sunagakure opponent. What this would do, was that it would severely decrease the amount of mobility that Gaara had. He did just that as he sliced through the tendons of Gaara effectively reducing him to that of a cripple in terms of movement.

What the opportunistic genin had spotted, was that the weakest point in Gaara's newest form, was that there was little to no sand covering the lower half of his body. "Ahhhh!" the red headed boy screamed out in pain as he had never felt this before.

Dropping almost instantly onto his knees, Gaara clutched at his ankles as he didn't know what else to do in terms of defeating this Naruto Uzumaki. There was only one other option that he had left and he decided on using that as it would better accommodate his lack of possible movement. What he now needed though was some time to cover his transformation.

To do that, Gaara called on the powers of his tenant and used the Ichibi's chakra to help improve one of his jutsus. That was the **Fuuton: Mugen Sajin Daitoppa (Wind Release: Infinite Sand Cloud Great Breakthrough.) **This was a jutsu which was one where Gaara did not have to use any hand seals in the making process. After inhaling a considerable amount of air, Gaara unleashed the jutsu to its full potential.

The course sand was sprayed all over the nearby vicinity. This jutsu even had enough power to knock down trees that were close by. With power like this, it was naïve to think that Naruto was one to get out of a situation like this without receiving some sort of damage. That he did as Gaara started turning around as much as his damaged ankles would let him and breathed the course sand all around him.

Not seeing it until it was far too late, there was little that Naruto could do in terms of protecting himself from the incoming attack. What the blonde haired boy did manage to do though was that he put his arms up to shield his face. It was a good thing that he did do that as the chakra infused sand grated on his under armour snake skin suit which was very resistant. Grating through the clothing that he wore, Naruto felt the true effects of the jutsu as when it came into contact with skin, it pretty much grated off a substantial section of the epidermis.

"Urgh!" Naruto groaned as this was something that he wasn't used to. Sure, when he had broken his leg in Kusagakure, it was an injury that solely affected one area of the body. This however which took all of the skin off from the elbow down on both arms was something that the blonde haired boy had not yet had the pleasure of dealing with.

Once the dust storm had subsided a substantial amount, Naruto removed his forearms to see if anything had changed. Something certainly had changed for the blonde haired boy! For instance, last time, he distinctively remembered there not being a 25 metre tall sand monster in front of him.

Reacting quickly to the situation in front of him, Naruto jumped back in succession so that he could have a chance to think things through before going up against that behemoth in front of him. _I guess this means that I will have to use my trump card if I want to get out of this situation alive. _Initially this was something that Naruto did not want to have to resort to but beggars couldn't be choosers. The fact that if people saw what he was about to do, all of the recent hard work that he had placed in trying to gain their positive attention would be for naught.

With an audible sigh permeating the air, Naruto closed his eyes and felt for a familiar chakra source deep inside of his veins. Bringing the orange / red / crimson chakra to the surface, the blonde haired boy felt an influx of power that only the Kyubi could provide. Luckily Naruto did this or otherwise he would not have had the speed to dodge the incoming attack of Gaara who was in full Shukaku mode at that moment.

The change was evident to Temari who was the only person in the nearby area as she noticed that the hair of Naruto seemed to get a bit wilder, the whisker marks that were situated on top of his cheeks were more pronounced and his teeth seemed to have grown. The biggest change in her eyes though was that Naruto's eyes had taken a drastic turn. Instead of the blue which had tiny black circular pupils, they had now changed into those of a crimson red colour. His irises had changed from their circular form into a slit running vertically.

The next thing that had the fan wielding girl from Sunagakure baffled was that she noticed that as these changes were going on to her brother's opponent, his injuries were healing. Strange as it was for Temari to believe, Naruto was indeed growing back layers of skin on his forearms and palms.

Naruto did not have any time to think about this or to wonder why he healed so much faster under the Kyubi. This was in comparison to the fact that it took forever in his opinion to heal his broken leg as Gaara was again on the attack. Thanks to the Kyubi's chakra running through his veins though, Naruto had a much easier time of dodging the attacks of his opponent.

Whilst he knew that it was very easy for him to dodge the incoming attacks at the moment, the Ichibi infused Gaara would eventually start upping the ante. What this would do, was that it would put Konoha which was behind him into danger.

To counteract this, Naruto had to go on the offensive. The way how the son of the fourth Hokage did this was by tapping even more into the large chakra source situated in his stomach. Despite not having full control over the form, Naruto was confident that because he was going to be expelling most of the chakra on Gaara, he wouldn't have any energy at the end of this fight to attack anyone else if things got out of hand.

It was thoughts like this one that allowed Naruto tap into the power of the nine tailed demon fox sealed inside of him and pulled enough chakra to go from a tailless state into his first chakra shroud state. The burning red chakra cloak that covered Naruto quickly healed the remaining cuts and scrapes to his arms. Said chakra was coming off of Naruto in spades, so much so that he had formed an ethereal tail at the base of his spine.

Wanting to prevent the Ichibi infused Gaara from going on a rampage, Naruto knew that he had to go on the offensive and deal some damage to Gaara. Jumping onto of the highest tree around, Naruto shouted out the name of his next attack. This coincided with him going through the hand seals required to make the attack work. "**Fuuton: Atsugai! (Wind Release: Pressure Damage!)**"

Creating a large gust of wind was not an easy feat. In fact, Naruto would not have been able to make it potent enough to face Shukaku without having the Kyubi's chakra behind it. Since Naruto had not yet refined the jutsu properly concerning his wind chakra, the jutsu was, by a technicality ranked as a B-ranked Jutsu. That was not to say though that with the help of the Kyubi backing the attack, Naruto easily increased it to that of an A-ranked wind ninjutsu.

When the attack collided with the giant structure made out of sand, shit went down. Taking the hit because there was no way in hell that he was going to be able to move the whole body quick enough to dodge the attack, Gaara prepared himself as best as he could. This was via sinking back into the sand so that his upper torso was not in the air.

Rough cuts went along the sand trying to make a passage and they halfway succeeded. Naruto's jutsu had even managed to destroy one of the arms of the Ichibi. Shattering a whole entire arm of a Bijuu was definitely not an easy feat that anyone could brag about.

Surprised at how much damage his jutsu could do, Naruto stared in shock wondering just how powerful it would be if he could use it to its full potential? Similar yet different thoughts were going through the mind of Gaara Sabaku as he wondered what the fuck would he have to do so that he could defeat Naruto?

Anything that he threw at the blonde haired boy was thrown back with double the force. Granted yet that he had not used any of his jutsus whilst in full Shukaku mode, but never had he faced such an annoying opponent like Naruto before.

As these thoughts were running through the mind of the red haired ninja of Sunagakure, he was channelling his chakra into where the amputation of the arm had occurred. Thanks to all of the sand that was around him, it did not take much chakra at all for Gaara to recreate an entire limb that was solely made out of sand.

Watching this occur, Naruto had one thought running through his mind. _Oh for fuck's sake! He can grow limbs back in that form!_These were the raging thoughts inside the mind of the son of the fourth Hokage. What this brought about to Naruto's mind was what was he going to have to do to win against Gaara? He had even used his trump card jutsu which had no effect at all! The blonde haired boy was starting to lose hope on what he was supposed to next when he noticed that Gaara was returning to the surface and had a very angry look on his face. That certainly meant that things were not going to get easier from here on out.

It was then that Gaara decided on using a jutsu that he had already used on Naruto before. This time though he would be using it with much more of the Ichibi's chakra running through his veins. What this had just done was that t made the attack just that much more powerful.

Inhaling a large gust of wind through the mouth of the Tanuki, Gaara then combined all of that air with the sand that surrounded it. With this combined mixture of sand and air, Gaara, for the final touch added chakra which would make the attack work properly. This was all done in less than 5 seconds. Not bothering to call out the name of the jutsu, Gaara released a genuinely massive sandstorm which would rain down hell on Naruto Uzumaki.

The power behind this one compared to the previous one that he had only used moments ago was the sheer widespread destruction. Completely destroying a forest in a matter of seconds was no easy feat. For the Ichibi powered Gaara though, it seemed as if it was child's play.

Naruto was not someone who was able to find some sort of cover and not get hit by the jutsu for a second time. The tree that he had been behind had snapped and one of the larger branches. What this did was that, even with the Kyubi cloak protecting him, the fore of the impact was enough to cause a slight dislocation in his shoulder. The great thing about having the ever present chakra of the nine tailed fox inside of him was that, within two seconds of the damage been done, it was already fixed once more.

What this did though was that it allowed for the Shukaku's sand to have free reign on his body. The demonic chakra of the sand battled against the demonic chakra of Naruto's cloak cancelled each other out. Getting rid of the demonic sand which, had he not had his cloak on, could have made mincemeat out of his skin and bones, Naruto had to lose the one tailed chakra cloak for a while.

This did not stop the fully stop the attack as it was also powered by the chakra from Gaara's own reserves. Much like the last time, Naruto faced the barrage of sand which destroyed all of his clothes apart from the snakeskin suit underneath. That itself was hanging on by a thread as the attack of Gaara's was a truly devastating one when he put enough chakra into it.

Thankfully for Naruto, the boy remembered that the clothes could repair themselves if he channelled his own chakra into it. With the intention of preserving his own modesty, Naruto repaired the pants as quickly as possible around the pelvis area. He didn't want to go free hanging after all in the biggest fight of his life. Since Naruto though did not have enough time to repair the rest of his clothes, it was if he was wearing boxers and that was it.

Not wanting to have to go through this again, Naruto decided that the best thing for him to do was to go on the offensive. That was a hard thing to do when he was going up against 75 foot giant raccoon dog hybrid made out of sand. Nevertheless, the blonde haired boy was certainly not someone who was known for giving up when the situation looked tough.

Since he still had the Kyubi's chakra running through him, the cloak came back near instantly after the attack of Gaara had ended. Grabbing his sword which he had left in its sheath, Naruto rushed at a speed that only Lee, Sasuke and Neji from the chunin exams would be able to follow and react to. It was the age old battle between speed and strength. Gaara fighting for strength and Naruto for speed, both were confident of obtaining victory.

Coming into close contact with the leg of Shukaku, Naruto dodged the previously unmentioned stomping that the Gaara tried to harm Naruto with. The blonde haired boy knew that if he was hit by one of those giant legs, he would be dead, no matter how he tried to defend the attack. The same could be said if he was hit by the tail of Gaara's full form Shukaku.

Seeing an opening in the way of the tail of Shukaku being relatively close to the ground, Naruto leaped thanks to the increased performance offered by the Kyubi and onto the tail. Realising where Naruto was and what threat this could pose if Naruto got any closer, Gaara redirected his attempts to kill Naruto via the **Sunaton: Sabaku Soso (Sand Release: Imploding Sand Funeral).**

Thanks to the Kyubi chakra cloak that Naruto had surrounding him though, the ability to hold Naruto in one place with his sand was increasingly difficult due to acidity of the chakra shroud. Whatever method he tried to get Naruto to slow down allowing him a better chance was in vein. Whether it was allowing the sand to become very loose resulting in Naruto sinking into the belly of the beast. That itself would be certain death for the nearly clothes less Naruto Uzumaki. Or it was making an impassable sand wall which Naruto would have to slow down for and move around.

It was solely a coincidence that the time that Gaara managed to get a hold of some part of Naruto's body, he had managed to get from the whole waist down. As this was happening, Naruto had managed to get within striking distance of Gaara. He had even managed to slip underneath his guard and had a direct shot on his ribs.

What this all boiled down to was that right at the same time, Naruto and Gaara unleashed what they thought was going to be the final attack on the match. It was only a matter of seeing who would be able to pull off their attack first. Swinging his sword in an arching motion, Naruto managed to get all the way to the second line of defence of Gaara before he felt immense pain in lower body.

Despite this pain, Naruto was someone who was determined to continue on with what he had initially set out to do. That was to severely damage his fellow jinchuuriki with his sword. Cutting through the sand armour was not fun. It was doable though thanks to the wind chakra channelling through the blade. Once that was done, it was down to the easy part. That was cutting through the skin of Gaara's upper chest.

When Naruto hit a bone, he realised that that he wouldn't be able to do much damage because he was just about to collapse in pain from Gaara's attack. Sliding his blade up and down, all the while it was still inside Gaara, Naruto managed to get the chokuto between the third and fourth ribs from the neck down. From there Naruto slid it across the bones' outer edge as Naruto came into contact which, if breached would lead to certain death if not attended to instantly.

That was the right lung as Naruto Uzumaki had punctured Gaara's right lung. It came to no surprise of anyone watching this unfold that both of the boys in action screamed out in agony. Gaara had never felt anything like this before as he was struggling to get air into his lungs as whatever went down seemed to come out through the hole that Naruto had made.

The blonde haired boy was feeling a similar feeling to that of when he broke his ankle in Kusagakure although in a much, much more severe way. It was as if his boy had been amputated from the waist down. In case anything happened from here on, Naruto put his blade back into its sheath so that he could use his hands for jutsus.

What he did not expect was for when he pulled the blade out, was for it to be helped on its way out by something from inside of Gaara. It was as if there was a gold substance covering Naruto's chokuto. If all that was bad, well what happened next was even worse.

The entire Shukaku gave way as it started going back to its original form of regular sand without any chakra infused into. Unfortunately for Naruto who was standing on the edge, near the mouth region, meant that he started to slip through the sand and onto the ground. This was coming from a 25 metre high drop, so this meant that the moment that he hit the ground, he would be dead.

"AAARGH!" the son of the fourth Hokage shouted as he panicked, not knowing what to do until an idea came to him. Thanking himself for putting his sword away which allowed Naruto to use jutsu, the boy ran through several hand signs.

This was happening ten metres from Naruto's instant death. Since the boy did not have good control over his chakra in his shroud form, Naruto could only summon one snake even if he tried to summon another one. That snake was Manda who was notorious for not wanting to help out in a situation unless it was against a very strong opponent. Naruto hoped that fighting one of the freaking Bijuu would be enough!

"**Fuuinjutsu: Kuchiyose no Jutsu! (Sealing Arts: Summoning Jutsu!)"** The blonde haired boy shouted out at the top of his lungs, alerting the only one in the immediate area that he still had something up his sleeves.

That person was Temari Sabaku as she could only watch in horror and fascination as to what was happening right in front of her very own eyes. In the eyes of this genin, it was not a battle between shinobi as it was more so a battle between monsters.

Whilst she deeply cared for her younger brother, she had to admit to herself that even when he wasn't acting like he was before the finals started, she was beyond petrified of him. What scared her the most though, was that there was someone from Konoha who was able to battle against her precious little brother toe to toe.

That was even before they started releasing their special powers. In her brother's case the Ichibi no Shukaku. In the case of Naruto, she had no fucking clue as to what that red chakra cloak was but she knew it drastically increased his strength, speed and chakra reserves. Temari at least thought that when Gaara went into full Shukaku mode that he would be able to kill his opponent. It was a weird way to feel safe about her brother's life, what in that she was putting her faith in a demon but such are the lengths someone's loved ones would go for them.

"**Why have you summoned me Naruto?" **The king of the snake clan questioned as he was curious. This was all stated with a hiss added onto each and every word. That was because Orochimaru had summoned to members of his clan in a similar location only moments earlier who died thanks to those blasted toads. It was events like these that really made Manda want to kill Orochimaru but could not because of how powerful the shinobi was.

It was then that Manda realised that Naruto was producing the corrosive chakra of the Kyubi. If it was not for his hardened skin, then the snake would have demanded Naruto get off of him. Weakly, Naruto responded to the demand of his summon boss. "Look in front of you. AAAARRGGGHHH!" Naruto shouted as he was feeling the full effects of the last jutsu that was used against him.

Hearing the distress that his summoner was in, the giant purple snake looked around to see what it was that could cause of the pain he was in. When he noticed the rapidly crumbling sand, the smart and deceitful snake could instantly guess that Naruto had gone the distance with one of the tailed beasts. From what it seemed to Manda, Naruto had fought the whole fight by himself and just summoned him at the end to pick up the scraps. Little did the giant snake know that that was definitely not true.

Thanks to the great healing powers of the Kyubi, Naruto was recovering from the damage that he had suffered from the Ichibi moments ago. It would be at least five minutes though before he would be able to walk at a civilian's pace. Considering what he had just been through though, this would be a medical miracle, had he not had they Kyubi no Kitsune inside of him.

Whilst Naruto was haling his lower body, he was not the only one who was healing at a rapid rate. This was also happening to Gaara Sabaku. Not to the same extent as Naruto though as his demon was renowned for prevented rather than a cure. This did not mean that it did not know how to prevent any injuries from getting worse.

Essentially, what the Shukaku was doing, was keeping Gaara alive. The reason behind this was that whilst he certainly did enjoy life on the outside, the Ichibi loved just as much to torture the psyche of his jinchuuriki. That was why he wasn't that fussed about breaking out of the seal. He knew if that happened, all of his hard work on destroying Gaara's mental abilities would be for nothing. Sure he liked to get out once and a while, but that was something that could be achieved without having to get sealed into a new jinchuuriki.

As Gaara had feinted because of the severe amount of pain that he was in combined with the large amounts of his own blood, it was up to the Ichibi no Shukaku to save the day for the red haired genin. Using the immense amounts of sand that was around him from the previous exploits, the Bijuu made it so that Gaara would fall softly onto the ground rather than becoming a red smudge on the dirt.

It was pretty much a standstill moment as Naruto was healing himself thanks to the Kyubi's chakra flowing through him and the Ichibi was patching the lung of Gaara back up. The moment that Gaara was patched up enough so that he could still breathe properly, the sand Bijuu decided that it was time for me to have some fun!

"**Hahaha I'm finally out!"** The Shukaku shouted as it was about to go destroy a whole lot of the surrounding area, especially that place which had all of those ninjas in it. For Naruto who could only lift himself up via a push up method, he was shocked with what he had just witnessed.

Gaara was getting back up. It was as if all of the work that he had done previously to subdue the one tailed jinchuuriki was all in vain. The first thing that happened right in Naruto's view point was that Gaara turned into his miniature Shukaku form. The difference though this time around was that this miniature Shukaku was much more energetic than the previous one.

If that wasn't bad enough all of the sand that was around him from the previous transformation started to build up around the base where his feet were. From there, all of the sand hand the one goal in mind. That was to return to the omnipotent full form of the one tailed Bijuu. Not only was Naruto a witness to this transformation but Manda was as well. If he was going to get the chance to go up against one of the nine demons of legend, then he wouldn't hold it against Naruto… much.

He could have nipped everything in the bud then and there by eating Gaara before he could turn into his full form and let him rot in his stomach acids. There were two reasons as to why he didn't though. The first one was that he knew Naruto was injured very badly. If Naruto wasn't competent enough to hold onto him via chakra, which was a very good chance of happening, then the boy would fall off. From a height this high up, Naruto falling off would surely lead to instant death.

The other reason was a less than savoury one in the eyes of many people. Manda wanted to have a good fight. He hadn't had one in a very long time. The last time that had happened was when he had to team up with that blasted Gamabunta to take on the four tailed jinchuuriki during the third great shinobi war. Testing his limits was not something that was limited to the humans. He wanted to find out if he could really go up against one of the tailed beasts.

This was of course in conjunction with his summon partner Naruto Uzumaki as the boy had started fighting the beast. He wasn't about to ninja the fight away from the boy. He had some sense of morals!

In the end though it was clear to Manda that he would just have to wait. Naruto was quickly healing the injuries that he had suffered judging by the movements that he made. The contrasting factor to this though was that the miniature Shukaku was getting bigger and bigger as time went on. It was having a hard time putting itself back together. This was because it also had to protect its jinchuuriki at the same time.

This was what Naruto managed to notice as he was getting up from his injury induced haze. Seeing the rising Gaara, Naruto only had one thing on his mind.

It was clear to the jinchuuriki that this fight had only just begun.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's note:<strong>

**Hey, just to let you know, since I have been focusing on this story in the near recent past quite a bit, expect the next chapter to not come as soon as I will be focusing on one or two of my other stories.**


	23. Tracing her way

The two giants stared one another down. Giant snake against giant sand dog / racoon. One of these behemoths was going to lose and each one was confident that it was going to be the other that lost. They both had a respective human nearby for the cause. Manda had Naruto who was riding atop of him full in his jinchuuriki cloak whilst Gaara was inside of the protective sand healing the injuries that he had suffered at the hands of the blonde haired boy.

It was a single genin soldier and a summon to go up against one of the Bijuu. On paper this was a high mismatch. Like a lot of things though, plans and judgement go out the window once the first kunai is thrown.

"**Use one of your Fuuton techniques Naruto**." Manda called out in an authoritive tone of voice as he prepared his own technique. Producing a substance different from saliva in his mouth, Manda waited a second so that Naruto could go through the hand seals before spitting out poison. _** Ninpou: Dokugiri no jutsu (Ninja Arts: Poison Mist Jutsu.)**_

"**Fuuton: Reppusho (Wind Release: Violent Wind Palm) **Naruto called out as it made using the technique easier in his mind. The combination of the wind and the poison made the attack impossible to dodge as it was so widespread. It would have been almost impossible anyway due to the size of Shukaku and its immobile nature.

Angry at having to take the hit, Shukaku launched out with his own technique. That was the **Fuuton: Renkudan no Jutsu (Wind Release: Drilling Air Bullet Jutsu.) **Having the same jutsu in his bag of tricks as well as the backing of the Kyubi in this fight, it meant that Naruto was able to go toe to toe with the attack and prevent it from hitting either himself or Manda. Naruto was really thanking his training in making his hand seals combinations that much faster.

Getting angrier and angrier as time went by, the Ichibi launched its tail towards the two in the hopes of wrapping them up and performing such a large scale **Sunaton: Sabaku Soso (Sand Release: Sand Waterfall Funeral.)** thanks to the agile nature of his body type, Manda was able to dodge the incoming attack. Not only was he able to do that, he was also able to dodge it in a way that allowed him to wrap his grand size around the tail in a constricting fashion most pythons.

Jumping off of the head of Manda, Naruto launched himself as he ran along the tail that was wrapped by the king of the jungle. Going through the hand seals, Naruto launched the most powerful jutsu that he had in his arsenal at the Ichibi. With the backing of the Kyubi behind him, it allowed Naruto to fully realise the jutsu's potential as it was now classified as a high A-ranked wind ninjutsu.

"Fuuton: Atsugai! (Wind Release: Pressure Damage!)" Naruto yelled out as the wind created from this jutsu were enough to rip through the softer sand of Shukaku's front left foot. Howling in pain as it was something that he definitely did not like one bit, the Shukaku tried a different method to defeat his opponents as the ones he was currently using were clearly not working.

Reverting his tail to the form without chakra, Shukaku then quickly tried to re-wrap it around the form of Manda and crush his internals through his jinchuuriki's favourite technique. Being someone who was able to react quickly in hard situations, Manda did his own counterattack.

Using the **Hebi Hijutsu: Hifu no Nagashi Jutsu (Snake Clan Secret Jutsu: Shedding Skin Jutsu) **Manda dodged the attack by burrowing himself underground. Not stopping there, Manda ploughed his way through the ground and popped his tail right in front of Shukaku as bait. As the Bijuu was focused on the appendage in front of him, the real Manda came up from out of the ground wrapped his body around Shukaku. As this was happening Manda once again breathed a substance out of his mouth onto the Ichibi.

Unlike the first time which was done via the usage of poison, this time it was done by using his acidic glands. These were designed to deal large amounts of fast acting damage to opponents who had even the toughest of defences. For someone like Shukaku who had the "ultimate defence", things likes this were not wants, they were needs.

Seeping through the sand which essentially was his skin for the near foreseeable future, Shukaku raged at the pain that he was feeling as he was someone who did not like the feeling at all. The one tailed demon was getting increasingly frustrated with this turn of events. He expected the fight between himself and his two opponents to be much more of a one sided contest in his favour. Instead of that it was going in the complete opposite direction. The sand demon wasn't even trading blows with Manda; he was instead just receiving them and hoping for an opportunity to strike.

With the sand that was around him, the Ichibi no Shukaku who was getting angrier and angrier as the fight dragged on, decided that it was time to switch from predator to all out berserker. Using the sand that made up his body, the Ichibi tried to wrap Manda who was already wrapping him up with the snake's body in a constricting fashion.

Sensing the danger that he was in, Manda did his best to escape unharmed. That was not to be however as the sand demon was just too quick for the giant purples snake. Using the course sand at his disposal, Shukaku managed to land a severe grazing on the skin of the snake clan leader. This was enough to draw a substantial amount of blue blood from the reptile.

Grunting in anger from having taken the injury, Manda went back to where Naruto was via the underground and popped up to help out his summoner. Looking ahead to where his opponent was, Manda wanted to know what the next attack that the Ichibi was going to use. Eyes widening in surprise as even the king of the jungle could not hold back his fear when he saw which jutsu the sand demon was preparing on using.

It was none other than the **Bijuudama (Tailed Beast Ball)**.

Knowing what was to come if he even got hit by a fraction of what the sphere contained, Manda quickly set about telling Naruto about the situation he was in. "**Naruto, in terms of ranking jutsus, the one that the Ichibi is just about to use would be a rank above S-class if there ever was one. There is no way to defend against the raw brutality that the menacing ball provides. All you can do is slow it down and get out of the way. If you try anything other than that, you will no doubt be reduced to the mere molecules that make up your body."**

Taking that news into consideration, Naruto though knew that he had to at least give it his all when it came to defending his village against the threat in front of him. "Manda-sama, dive underground and appear behind the Bijuu. I'm going to use a jutsu that you taught me which I know that you never planned on me using any time soon." Seeing the look on the face of his clan leader, Naruto flinched as he knew that he was not going to hear the end of this conversation.

Whilst Manda cared about Naruto, he did not care about the village hidden in the leaves one bit. He wouldn't have cared if it burnt to the ground the very next day. To Naruto though, it was his home. He would do anything to protect the place that gave birth to him from invaders.

In the mind of the snake clan leader, Manda thought that Naruto was still suffering some of the Stockholm syndrome that he had been suffering from when he first offered the boy the opportunity to join the snake clan.

With a sigh at how stubborn Naruto was, Manda dived down into the ground to protect himself from the incoming jutsu as he knew that no matter what he said, Naruto would not listen. The blonde haired boy was using instincts rather than logical thought at the moment. It was something that he would have to break the boy from doing.

Exhaustion was running through his body and Naruto knew that he didn't have much more to give at his current level. The pain that was coursing through his body was enough to make a civilian drop to the ground and pass out. The blonde haired boy though knew that he would have to step it up a notch if he even wanted a hope in saving this battle.

Drawing on even more power of the Kyubi no Kitsune, Naruto grew another chakra tail which sprouted at the base of his spine. The influx of power that he was feeling from this was amazing. The feelings of hatred, power and wanting to cause destruction almost blindsided Naruto into releasing more power than he could safely handle. Even the level that he was at right now was a little too much but some boundaries had to be pushed if the outcome outweighed the risk.

Crouching down even lower as he was getting into a stance that would make it easier for him to transfer into a four tailed state, Naruto started going through hand seals so that he could unleash his ultimate defensive jutsu. The power of the Kyubi was not only affecting Naruto's physical sate as his raw power, speed and chakra reserves shot up dramatically but it also affected his voice as he spoke in a low, guttural tone of voice.

"**Hebi Hijutsu: Sanshu no Rashomon! (Snake Clan Secret Jutsu: Triple Rashomon!"** The snake summoner called out as he pushed just about all of his chakra into the jutsu.

It was a battle between the jutsu of Naruto and the jutsu of the Shukaku to see which would rise first. Gate one popped up. Gate two popped up. The same time that gate number two popped up, the Ichibi swallowed the giant mass of chakra. Finally, as gate three was coming out of the ground, Naruto jumped to the side as fast as he could.

It was a good thing to as the Namikaze born boy narrowly saved himself from getting killed. What Naruto did not stop though was sustaining yet another injury due to the enemy.

This time it was getting a chunk of his calf muscle completely blown apart by the strongest attack of the Bijuu. A massive scream ruptured through the air as Naruto was now hobbling on one leg. Not even the ever proud boy could prevent himself from letting loose a few tears due to the pain that he was in at that very point in time.

With the amount of pain that he was in at the moment, the blonde haired boy didn't dare look back to see how much damage Konoha had suffered. Whatever had happened would only be images that would wreck his brain and make him lose focus.

Mustering up some of the remaining strength that was remaining in his body, Naruto made several clones of himself to act as decoys. As this was happening, Naruto hid behind a tree and let the magic of the Kyubi's chakra heal his injuries.

The mind of Naruto was going at a hundred miles a second trying to conjure up a plan that would end this bloodshed and destruction. He was not going to compromise that if Konoha had to suffer a lot. The ideal goal was to stop this fight without there being a single casualty but Naruto knew that that was only a fool's hope.

It was then that there was idea that started snowballing into something that he could work with. Yes, Naruto was confident that this was a plan that would definitely produce an outcome. The only question was whether or not if it would be in the blonde haired boy's favour.

Thanking the fact that he was much smaller in size compared to his summon partner, this gave him the time to not only prepare his next move but it also gave him the time to heal from all of the injuries he had sustained up until this point.

The healing power of the Kyubi no Kitsune was truly remarkable. Due to having two tails of the vile chakra running through his body, Naruto was able to heal bodily parts in times that other could only dream of. What was a potential career ending injury for some, it was only taken one and a half minute for Naruto's leg to reattach the muscle to the tendon. The harder part was recreating all of the muscle fibres from scratch. Without those meaty cords Naruto would not be able to push off with any kind of force whatsoever. All that the blonde haired boy could do was hope that Manda was able to hold off the Shukaku for long enough that he could surprise the bastard with an attack that would spell the end for the one tailed beast.

The way how the serpent king was doing this was by burrowing underground, pooping up and firing his acids and then once again going underground. It was a clear stall tactic and there was not that much that the Shukaku could do about it.

If he moved so that he could go and attack the Kyubi brat, then the damned pesky snake would pop up and get a clear shot on him. Despite him being one of the tailed beasts that had a great defence, not even he could defend himself against the acids of Manda all that well. If Manda was able to get a direct hit on the Ichibi then it would seriously set the beast back some time as it recovered.

The other problem was that unlike some of the other Bijuu, the Ichibi was one that did not have any sensory powers like say the Kyubi. It had to rely on its eyesight and its hearing. Both of which weren't all that special. The constant vibrations that were felt through the ground weren't helping at all. It was too bad for Shukaku that Manda was the one directly responsible for those miniature shockwaves going through the ground. These were a form of defence mechanism employed by the giant snake as it did this to disable any Doton based sensory. Manda didn't know whether or not the Ichibi was capable of such feats but Manda did not want to risk it.

If there was anyone more grateful for what the serpent king was doing than Naruto, then the blonde haired boy definitely wanted to meet them. Said boy was sitting down inside a nearby bush as best as his surroundings would allow him.

He was in pain but that didn't matter. The whole village hidden in the leaves was in pain thanks to the invasion caused by Sunagakure and Otogakure. The will and determination inside of Naruto though was what made the kid such a great up and coming shinobi. The grit to go through any kind of struggle and come out on top or the better was what Naruto had in spades. It was this determination that Naruto pulled himself up and off the ground when others simply gave up.

Despite the fact that he was still injured and could move nowhere as fast as what he could when he was 100%, Naruto was willing to put his body through anything just to make sure that the people that he cared about would be alright.

Pulling on the dregs of the energy running through his body, Naruto had a grimace on his face as he ran at the underbelly of the Ichibi no Shukaku.

Manda wasn't a great sensor by any means. He was only just as good as the hardened chunin at the skill. Because though that Naruto was flaring so much of the Kyubi's chakra, the giant purple snake knew where Naruto had positioned himself. Even in the small amount of time that he knew Naruto on a personal level, Manda knew that Naruto was capable of producing brilliantly thought out plans on the spot. Even on occasion were these better than some of the plans that the best strategists from the clan could produce with time to think things through.

It was clear that whatever it was that Naruto had thought up was going to be a game changer. The only problem was that Naruto needed Shukaku to be distracted so that he could make the most of the situation. This was definitely one of the qualities that had interested Manda into Naruto in the first place.

Thanks to the efforts of Manda and his acid spitting, Naruto was able to run undetected and get into the best position possible for his plan. That was right underneath the belly of the beast! Not even Manda could believe that Naruto would do something as stupid as stand beneath one of the tailed beasts. Maybe the bloodlust of the Kyubi's chakra going through him had affected the boy more than he had first thought?

Using nearly all of the chakra that Naruto had going through his pathways at the time, he was hopefully going to end this fight with this jutsu. "**Fuuton: Atsugai! (Wind Release: Pressure Damage!)**" Thanks to all of the Youkai passing through, Naruto was able to supercharge the winds that were generated from this jutsu. Using one tail of the Kyubi's chakra allowed Naruto to produce a mid A-ranked jutsu. This was in comparison to when he used only his own chakra and managed to create a B-rank jutsu. If only he had better control over his element.

However, when Naruto made the jutsu with two tails of chakra running through him, the results of such jutsu had not been tested yet. The rule involving jutsus that haven't been tested out yet was to never use them in battle. There is a slight exception though when it came to jinchuuriki. If all you were doing was just increasing the power of the jutsu then you could possibly get away with it as long as it wasn't a jutsu that you exhaled through the mouth. Only time would tell in seeing just how effective that Naruto was just about to use. Luckily there was very little to no waiting time at all.

Thrusting his hands from his chest after gathering all of the chakra that he had available to him at the time, Naruto unleashed the jutsu. The damage was instant, so too was the pain that the Ichibi felt.

The tearing winds collided with softer underbelly of the demon. Normally these winds were white but thanks to the type of chakra that was powering it as well as the fact that it was being overloaded; there was now a slight tint of red marring each of the blades of wind. Not even something that was as feared as the Shukaku is would be able to defend against the attack well.

Chunks of sand started falling from the beast as Naruto had to dodge with his still injured leg which was harder than he wished for it to be. Since Naruto did not have great control over the jutsu, it was not a controlled and directed attack. It turned out to be a widespread damage jutsu that destroyed anything that it came into contact with.

The legs of the Ichibi no Shukaku were arguably the beast's strongest points of defence. They held up better than the stomach but still could not support the incredible weight as well as sustain the damage from Naruto Uzumaki. What this meant was that as time went by and despite the fact that the winds were dying down, more and more chakra compressed sand was falling down above Naruto.

Being in the position that it was in thanks its host being so weak from injuries, the sand demon did its best to preserve its chance in living in the outside world for as long as possible. To do this, it kept Gaara as far down as possible in the sand whilst still allowing him a pocket of air to travel to his unconscious body allowing him to breathe. The place in which the body of the red haired boy had been placed was in the centre of Shukaku's stomach. This was because it was not only the hardest to get too due to all of the sand around it, but also because of the sheer amount of sand, it also had the greatest armour surrounding Gaara.

Due to the great amount of sand that was falling off of the body of the Ichibi, Gaara's position was becoming more and more compromised as he started sinking in the sand. This was happening because of the lack of density that was once there to support his weight. It eventually got to the point where the lower part of his left leg was sticking out of the sand allowing it to be seen. The unconscious Gaara was thankful that the jutsu that Naruto had just used had now died down in great proportions. Whilst there was still some wind going around at the time, it was only a large gust of wind; nothing that would be able to cause any damage unless it was freezing cold.

Snakes in general do not have good eyesight. That was why Manda, the king of all serpents was not able to see the small leg sticking out of the body of sand from how far away he was at the time. However, humans by comparison have much better eyesight than reptiles and this compounded with his position allowed Naruto to spot the leg.

Knowing what had to be done, Naruto lifted his hand onto the hilt of his sheathed chokuto and jumped up into the air. The blonde haired boy was fuelled by all of the Kyubi's chakra that was still running inside of him. Pulling out his blade and channelling wind chakra through it to make his job even easier, Naruto used both hands to generate even more force. Instead of what a lot of other shinobi would do in his position, Naruto did not simply just attack the leg that was visible. He did not even attack around the body for a potential kill shot.

Instead, what the blonde haired boy did was cut a large enough rectangle around the area that Gaara could potentially encompass from the position that his leg was in. Naruto was rewarded when the severe lack in pressure resulted in all of the sand that was inside the cut lines fell to the ground. As gravity was taking him back down to the ground, Naruto put his sword back in its sheath.

The last thing that Naruto did was that he pulled on the leg of Gaara with enough force to make the red haired boy get released from the grasp of the chakra controlled sand.

With the work that Naruto had just done, Manda was now able to see just what his summoner was aiming for. The purple serpent that it was only luck that Gaara was being held where he was, but he would not look a gift horse in the mouth. Then there was a single thought that entered the mind of Manda. What if Naruto did not know what it was that kept the Shukaku out in the open for so long? He wasn't going to take any chances. Despite not wanting to admit it, Manda was a bit rusty because he had not had to fight such a large scale battle in such a long time. Going from doing nothing to then fighting one of the Bijuus was certainly not one of the easiest tasks in the world of shinobies. Manda did not want to have to fight for any longer as his body was aching all over. What the giant snake wanted was rest and lots of it. "**Naruto! Wake the boy up! The reason why the Ichibi no Shukaku is dominant over that boy is because said boy is unconscious so wake him up!**"

Getting advice from who was essentially his commanding officer, Naruto nodded in thanks and when he landed on the ground he set out to wake Gaara Sabaku up. Shaking the Sunagakure shinobi's body was the first way that Naruto had thought of. When it became clear to Naruto that this was not working, Naruto struggled to think of another way to wake Gaara up. The reason behind this was Naruto remembered the first time as to why Gaara became unconscious. The red haired boy fell panicked at the sight of his own blood and fell into the land of dreams.

If there was one thing that Naruto did not want to occur, it was a repeat performance. That was why he was struggling to figure out a good way of waking Gaara up. It was then as if hit by a wave of inspiration, Naruto had figured out the perfect way to do this. Reverting back to his ways before meeting with Shakudo-sama, Naruto did something that he only would have done a long time ago. That was giving someone a wet willy.

Sticking his index finger and wetting it, Naruto pulled out the saliva dripping finger and stuck it directly into the ear of one Gaara Sabaku. What made it even worse for Gaara was that there were only two places that he did not have his sand armour. Those two places were the joints that made up his groin and his ears so that he could hear properly.

Slowly, due to the uncomfortable feeling of something wet inside his ear, Gaara started coming to the real world. As this was happening all the red haired boy could hear were the screams of the Ichibi no Shukaku. Said beast was obviously not at all happy with the fact that his time in the free world was cut short by something as degrading as what had just happened.

The first thing that Gaara noticed was that he couldn't move his body at all. All of his chakra supply was depleted and the Sunagakure shinobi had a severe case of chakra exhaustion. For the first time in his life Gaara was truly afraid. Without his chakra supply, he wasn't able to control any forms of his defence apart from the automatic part. That didn't work though as Gaara did not have his gourd anywhere nearby.

Without his defence mechanisms, Gaara was afraid that people would come and try to hurt him, just like what happened when he was younger. Panicking because of the predicament that he now found himself waking up to, Gaara instantly opened his eyes and was met with the face of his biggest enemy at this current point of time. That was Naruto Uzumaki who had his sword drawn and pointing directly at his heart.

If all that wasn't bad enough, the sound of the sand that made up Shukaku crumpling to the ground now that it had no chakra to support it made Gaara know that he had lost his first ever fight. With the panic and hyperventilation evident in his voice, Naruto listened to what Gaara had to say. "Nooo! My existence will never be extinguished. It can't! There is no way that I will let it disappear!" Hearing what the defeated shinobi had to say, it was painful for Naruto as it brought up memories that he wished he didn't have to remember once again.

"The pain of being alone isn't an easy thing to deal with, is it?" the bittersweet smile that was on the face of Naruto didn't reassure Gaara one bit that his existence wasn't going to end soon. "It's so soul destroying seeing all of the people having friends and a caring family and wondering why is it that the things that you want the most, you can't have.

Now I am not sure what the circumstances were surrounding you being forced into having this burden but I do know that there are ways that you can escape the pain. That is what I did." When Naruto had finished saying what he had, Gaara couldn't help but face Naruto with all of his attention. He had gone through enough struggles in his life.

Now normally, Gaara wouldn't have listened to the words of someone else with a grain of salt. This was because Gaara believed that people who were trying teach him life lessons hadn't gone through all of the struggles that he had thus not becoming as strong as him. It was only through battle that allowed for the psyche of Gaara to open up to other possible ways of getting stronger.

"There is only one thing that can cure the pain that I used to feel and the pain that you still feel to this day. That is that you need to find a place where you belong. Doing so might not seem relevant now but it is ultimately the best way for you to get some inner peace." The red haired boy was going to interrupt and ask how that was possible. Thankfully for Gaara, he didn't need to. Naruto felt content in continuing on speaking for the time being.

"You need to find people that are willing to look past anything that's out of your control like us being jinchuuriki for example. It might be harder to accomplish that in Sunagakure than what is was like for me in Konoha but I am confident that you can do it! And when you find someone like that, only then will you gain the true strength in protecting what is important to you.

I will even be the first person who will look past that and become friends with the real Gaara." As Naruto said this, he pulled his sword back and allowed it to slide into its sheath. The next thing that he did was Naruto allowed for the demonic chakra running through him to subside.

It would normally be a lot harder but because he was so exhausted, Naruto only wanted to rest. He didn't want to go on any sort of offensive whatsoever. It took a bit of an effort but Naruto made himself fall back into the one tailed state. Immediately, once this was done, Naruto felt the instant hit of the lack of chakra running through him. It was as if someone had forced an instant sleeping pill down his mouth as the blonde haired boy was struggling to stay on his feet.

If it was this bad without all of that Youkai, Naruto could only imagine what it was going to be like when he going to have none of the glorified adrenaline shot. Due to the way in which controlling the Youkai worked, it was much easier for Naruto to force the Youkai back into his seal now that one of the tails had gone away.

Before he reverted to his initial jinchuuriki form, Naruto noticed the tell-tale sign of a massive plume of smoke going off in the distance. Manda obviously knew that Naruto now had this fight under control and was going to heal his acquired injuries. With him not needed around any longer, the giant purple snake headed off home.

The old Naruto might have been showing through but it didn't matter to the blonde haired boy. It could have also been the fact the fact that he felt a tonne of empathy for Gaara because he had been through the same type of upbringing albeit not as harsh. Manda would probably berate him for being so trusting and letting his guard down, but honestly, Naruto didn't care. He had been through so much as a jinchuuriki that when he saw another struggling through tough times, all he wanted to do was help out.

All this put together meant that when Naruto dropped down to his initial jinchuuriki mode and without the adrenaline boost that it provided, Naruto was unable to hold onto consciousness as he fell flat on his stomach into the ground right next to Gaara.

Well that would have been the case had there not been a silver haired man standing right next to Gaara, catching the nearly prone body of Naruto. For the first time in his life, the red haired Sunagakure shinobi was experiencing the feeling of utter helplessness.

There was some strange person who was by all accounts kidnapping someone who was willing to be his friend and there was not a damn thing that he could do to stop them. He couldn't even save himself because not even two seconds later and there was a seal being placed on Gaara's forehead. Said seal forced the genin into sleep and even prevented the Bijuu inside of him from coming out.

In a matter of seconds, one single shinobi had two of the most promising shinobi of a generation held hostage. Thankfully for Naruto and Gaara, the person who had done this was none other than Jiraiya of the Sannin so even in their unconscious state, they could rest easily with the knowledge of their bodies being in morally right hands.

Before the veteran shinobi could move, there was a gust of wind that forcefully pushed at him. Due to having channelled chakra into the ground beneath him to prevent him from moving anywhere, Jiraiya did not have any harm done to him from the Fuuton ninjutsu.

Turning his head around, Jiraiya spotted two shinobi. As they came closer to him, the silver haired man realised that they were two thirds to all of the children that the former Kazekage had. It was obvious that they didn't want him to walk away with their brother.

Not sure who the shinobi who was holding their brother on his shoulder was, Temari wasn't sure how powerful said person was. This including the fact that she had just been in an attempt to start a war with Konoha meant that she wasn't at hundred percent fighting ability. For all she knew, the man in front of her was some highly ranked S-class shinobi.

With all of the possibilities, Temari thought name dropping might be enough to get the silver haired shinobi to hand over her brother. "We are the children of the Yondaime Kazekage! I demand for you to hand over that Sunagakure shinobi over to us."

Unfortunately for the blonde haired teenager, this did not seem to faze Jiraiya one bit at all. With a single raised eyebrow, the seal master replied. "Oh, you're the children of the Yondaime Kazekage, how quaint. I am Jiraiya of the Densetsu no Sannin and I taught the Yondaime Hokage."

There was not even enough time for the eyes of Temari and Kankuro to go wide as saucers as the veteran shinobi used great speed to their location and give a dual kick to the backs of their heads. Such experience was needed as this could have easily not been an immobilizing shot like he intended. As the unconscious bodies of Temari and Kankuro fell to the ground, Jiraiya dropped down so that they landed on top of Naruto and Gaara respectively.

With a final look at the surroundings which had been all but obliterated, Jiraiya headed back to the city centre as there was still a lot of damage control that needed to be run.

**With Sakura**

If there was one person who was embarrassed the most with their performance in the short attack on Konoha, then it was the pink haired girl that was a part of team 7. At least someone like her former rival Ino could boast about doing something for the village in its time of need, what could she say? All Sakura could say was that she fainted at her genin teammates use of killing intent and fainted.

When her Sasuke-kun needed her most, she yet again failed to even do anything remotely helpful. What didn't help the situation was that Sasuke had indeed suffered injuries from his fight with Gaara, none more so than the chakra exhaustion from having to use the chidori often.

For all of the good her confidence did for her when situations got tougher when it came to her one true lover, when life got seriously harsh Sakura's confidence immediately left her. To pour salt onto the humiliation that she had suffered, the words of Naruto were ringing through her mind and they only served to make her more depressed. _You say that you know a medical jutsu which can heal injuries but all that says is that you are only a help once all of the damage has been done._

As much as it pains me to admit it, Naruto is right. Had I been a good shinobi like Sasuke or even Hinata, then I would have been able to do my village proud and help out. All I ended up doing though was absolutely nothing and it hurts my pride! For too long have I been the scared little girl that has always needed help in getting someone else to bail me out! From now on I will be a new type of Sakura, one that doesn't take shit from anyone but more importantly, doesn't need help from anyone! _A Sakura that can fight all of her own battles; that has a nice ring to it._

**With Anko**

There was nobody more shocked in the battle of Konoha to see the large summon king Manda out in the flesh. For an instant, the purple haired kunoichi believed that it was Orochimaru who was the person that had summoned Manda. If she was brutally honest with herself, she was terrified. For all of the confidence that she portrayed as a special Jonin that wanted to kill her former sensei, Anko knew that she had a long way to go if she ever wanted to reach the same skill level of the snake Sannin.

To even contemplate going up against her former sensei, which was something that she no doubt wanted to do as well as fight Manda at the same time, it was quite daunting to put the situation lightly.

However, Anko soon came to the realisation that Orochimaru was not the person who was summoning Manda as she could tell from the curse mark on her shoulder that he was in a totally different direction. This made Anko mad and jealous all at once. Mad that someone was so stupid enough to fall for the lies that Orochimaru had obviously fed them to join his quest for power. The jealousy came from the fact that even though she hated the man with a passion, there was quite a substantial point of her life was dedicated to nothing more than making the man happy.

To hear that there was someone else that he had chosen to be his apprentice it was yet another form of betrayal that Anko had to realise that her sensei was capable of doing.

The fear that her former sensei having a new student was that there was no telling not only how powerful were they but also how much potential did they have? If there was one thing that was synonymous with Orochimaru, it was that when he was searching for a student, the long haired man liked the genius type who had some sort of bloodline that he could maximize the most out of.

What twisted words had Orochimaru used towards this person to make them so willing to attack Konoha with the use of a snake that demanded 100 sacrifices every time they were summoned? Just how screwed in the head were they that they would even turn to Orochimaru?

Despite the fact that she had a job to do in that she had to protect all of the children who attended the shinobi academy, the purple haired snake mistress couldn't help but look over her shoulder as she felt the most horrific chakra that she had ever felt before. To see that lining up against Manda was one of the bloody tailed beasts was definitely not something that she expected to see.

This was no more a fight between shinobi. It was now a fight between monsters of the largest scale that were going to go head to head with one another. The sounds of fighting going on in the background were enough to bring the woman back to reality in that there was a job that she needed to complete. The lives of children were resting on her shoulders and she didn't want to make them see the horrors that she had seen in her life.

Getting her mind back on track, Anko noticed that her former classmate in the academy Iruka Umino was busily directing the kids into the safety zones inside the Hokage Mountain. It was time for Anko Mitarashi to step up and complete the task that was assigned to her. Hopefully if she could put down a good performance, then she would be able to slightly change the opinions of the Konoha residents in that she wasn't just the snake bitch, she was Anko Fucking Mitarashi!

Knowing how her former sensei liked to co-ordinate his attacks, the special Jonin instinctively knew that there was going to be a group that was going to attack the people who could not defend themselves. It was a strategy to bring out the Konoha shinobi so that the real attack could get the ninjas trying to protect the civilians.

She was not disappointed as Anko spotted the group of shinobi attempting to ambush the unsuspecting academy protection unit. It seemed as if the ninjas that Orochimaru had picked out were quite weak and were pretty much just making up the numbers in the eyes of Anko as they did not notice her when she hid with her chakra signature masked. Anyone who had a few years' experience would be able to figure this out. There should be at least one person in each patrol group who had some form of tracking and sensory ability.

Coming up behind the enemy with them none the wiser, Anko through three four kunai at the four man group. Two of them connected with their targets which was the back of the neck. This instantly killed them without any hope of survival. This was even before they managed to turn around and try and defend themselves. It seemed that the other two were actually semi competent shinobi as they heard the sound of the incoming metal of death and managed to dodge the attack.

What they did not expect though was for there to be a follow up attack. Silently, Anko went through the hand signs and breathed out fire. _**Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu! (Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu!) **_The mental incantation helped out the purple haired lady got her jutsu off in the general direction of where the enemy should be landing.

Anko had predicted correctly as her jutsu connected directly with the face of the Otogakure ninja and burned his face… severely. When the fire connected, the worst thing that the sound shinobi could have done… he did. That was that he panicked. He might have had a chance of escaping had he not panicked but because he did, his live was already forfeit. Panicking in such a situation meant that what little oxygen was in his lungs was forced out his mouth.

With fire needing oxygen to not only sustain life but also to thrive in it, it was as if the sound shinobi was adding fuel to the fire… literally. Like fire falling on oil or gasoline, the flame raced down the path of the oxygen and into the inner workings of the man's lungs. Burning the inside of the lungs was definitely one of the worst ways to go. It was akin to swallowing sulphuric acid which, once ingested, disintegrates the lungs to the point of no return.

If all that was bad enough then it was just adding insult into the large injuries that he had sustained when he couldn't even move. This was due to the muscles getting heated up so much that they would simply not move.

Seeing the death of all three of his comrades, the sound shinobi turned around to start going through a sequence of hand seals so that he could launch some thinly bottled retaliation. Unfortunately for him, Anko had already beat him to finishing the hand sign sequence as she released her arm in an outward direction right in his direction. "**Hebi Hijutsu: Sen'eijashu (Snake Clan Secret Jutsu: Hidden Shadow Snake Hands)**"

The flying snake went straight for one of weakest point in the human body. It went straight for the jugular vein in the neck. With purple tipped fangs it was no surprise when the moment that the fangs sank into the enemy's neck, there was an instant reaction. This was through the form of rapid convulsion before no movement at all. Waiting five seconds as the snake held the bite on for added effect, Anko de-summoned the animal so that she could go about her mission.

Catching up with a group of civilian women that she saw, Anko silently followed them in case they needed any form of protection. Luckily for their sake they did not have anything that they had to deal with. When she the group reached the safe zone, Anko made herself known to the terrified civilians. With their rather misguided view on ninjas, they thought that Anko had done all of the work from the shadows to protect them. The slight blush that accompanied the smile was hope for Anko in that she could maybe change the view of Konoha.

Meeting up with Iruka, someone who she had known since the academy, there was a look between the two as they silently questioned whether each other were ready for what was about to come. This was not so much personally if they were mentally ready, but more so if there were no more survivors outside that they had to search for. A slight twitch was all that was done but it was enough of a communication between the two to allow the other to know their thoughts. Everything was okay and the second phase of the plan was ready to be commenced.

Before that could happen though, there was an untimely interruption as Konohamaru who was running through the narrow corridors bumped into Anko. With a strained smile on her face, the purple haired lady waited until the kid scampered away before she did anything that she regretted.

Finally, once all of the shinobi and kunoichi that were going to take part were ready, Iruka set up a barrier seal so that it would take just that little bit extra for an Otogakure shinobi to break in and have a field day.

The moment the counter attack started and they were running out of the Hokage Mountain, there was a question directed straight at her. "So Anko why the hell did you allow the Kyubi gaki to sign the Snake summoning contract? I thought you had more brains than to let the bastard even more powerful so he can turn on us." Due to the nature of the childhood that Naruto had, Anko was one of the people who did not appreciate a single person berating Naruto. Normally she would have done her scary face at anyone who insulted Naruto as well as threaten to castrate them with a rusty kunai. Even if it meant having to cut out the ovaries, she would pretend to want to do it.

Because of the fact though that she was taken by utter surprise by the fact that someone had even suggested the mere fact that Naruto was the person to summon Manda of all people! The last time that she remembered seeing the brat was when he did that amusing prank on the Hokage monument. To imagine someone like Manda who was had a massive stick shoved up his arse, it was just laughable.

Through past experience, the reason why Anko was never considered a full member of the snake clan was for one, she never received the tattoo but more importantly, she did not have the personality that they demanded for her to have. They would have wanted for her to be the carbon copy of her sensei but in female form and there was no way in hell of that happening. She had been betrayed by that man and she wanted to be as different from him as was physically possible.

"What the fucking hell makes you think that Naruto is the one who summoned Manda?" Anko bewilderedly shouted as there was the small fact that the Naruto that she knew was a polar opposite of her former sensei. There was more chance of a snowflake surviving a Bijuudama then there was of the Sandaime Hokage's pseudo grandson joining the most hated traitor in the history of Konoha. It was just simply for Anko to imagine Naruto being someone who would sign the snake contract.

It was then that the damn broke on the emotions of Anko as she heard something that instantly made the woman fear for the future of Konoha. "You might not remember it since you are much younger than what I am, but I clearly remember the feeling of the Kyubi when it hit. Since I am able to sense chakra signatures, I can sense he two coming from over there." It was at this point that the older man pointed in the direction of where the fight between Manda and Naruto against the Ichibi no Shukaku.

"There are three massive chakra signatures in that area and only one of them is one that I remember. Easily, the most distinctive one is the one the giant sand thing. There is another big one coming from the giant snake and finally, one that I will never ever forget sensing is the one coming from the Kyubi. That means that the little demon is using its powers finally."

Not even caring that she had a mission to do, Anko was rooted to the spot as she struggled to process the information going through her brain right at that point in time. The possibilities that this single statement could allow people to think up were ones that had no good futures for Konoha. The most common thought among the other shinobi who were nearby thought that Naruto had decided to betray Konoha and joined the snake Sannin to get the power that it needed to finish what it started all those years ago.

It was needless to say that the psychology of the people living inside of Konohagakure was severely affected by the attack of the Kyubi no Kitsune.

There was only one slight redeeming feature and that was that Naruto was fighting against the giant racoon made out of sand. Being associated with snakes and the admittance from Anko that she had not allowed Naruto to sign the contract was certainly a stigma that was not going to die down anytime soon.

It was simply just unheard of for a summoning clan to approach a human. Even if there was a meeting between the two without a third party, then it was normally done through summoning without the use of a contract.

Anko was not someone who was void of prejudging people. This was especially apparent when it concerned anything to do with her former sensei. Anyone that was in even remote connection with the man was immediately deemed as a despicable person who should be killed. She was going to get down to the bottom of this and find out how the fuck Naruto managed to sign the snake contract.

If Naruto was in connection with her former sensei then she would kill him in the most painful way possible. Consequences of killing the Kyubi jinchuuriki be damned! She was going to do that so that she could prevent the world from having to experience something even worse than her sensei as Naruto had the Kyubi behind him. It would be fucking idiotic for allowing Orochimaru to poison the minds of the Kyubi jinchuuriki and get Naruto to do his bidding for him. It would spell the end for Konoha as she knew it and she wasn't going to let that happen. She would give her everything until the threat of Orochimaru was defeated, even her life.

**With Neji**

It was not something that he liked to admit but Neji Hyuga was feeling very alone right now. None of the people that he was in frequent contact with were here to even say hello. The white walls of the Konoha general shinobi hospital were a drab place that only served to remind the genin of what his life was like back at the Hyuga compound.

Sure, Neji knew that there was a war going on but through the use of his Byakugan, he knew that the fight had been over for quite some time and yet there was still no one who was willing to come say hello. The injuries that he had suffered at the hands of Naruto Uzumaki meant that he was not going to be leaving this place anytime soon.

He was injured enough so that he was not allowed to move out into home care but Neji was not injured enough that he required a medical ninja to heal him up quickly. It was obvious to the black haired boy that there were people who had more important injuries for the medical ninjas to attend to.

Speaking of the injuries that he had sustained, Neji was in a severe amount of pain as there were some quite decent sized holes in his body. This was not to mention all of the cuts that he had acquired due to all of the wind chakra manipulation as well as Fuuton ninjutsus.

Crutches were necessary for the member of the Hyuga clan but he was able to move around in his private ward. Being the nephew of the head of arguably Konoha's most powerful clan certainly had its benefits. The only place that Neji was able to walk to at a very slow pace was though was the toilet. Still, it was something that greatly reduced there being any loss in pride for the teenager.

Before the prodigal genin could go into retrospective thoughts about the fight that he had just been were brought to a halt as there was someone knocking on his door. Still with the war fresh on his memory, before he even bothered to open his mouth to speak, Neji used his clan's trademark Dojutsu to see who it was behind the door.

The black haired boy did not instantly recognize the person who is. It was certainly not Gai-sensei or even the small possibility of it being his uncle. The only redeeming quality was the fact that the man had a Konoha forehead protector with the symbol of their village etched onto it. Curious but also prepared for anything that could possibly go wrong, Neji was apprehensive when he spoke up. Thanks to his emotional control, it was not something that was projected through his voice. "Yes, you can come in."

Stepping through the door, there was a man, roughly in his mid-twenties, who had brown hair and black, slanted eyes. The forehead protector the man was wearing was one that Neji reckoned looked very similar to the one worn by the Nidaime Hokage during his reining years. Apart from the forehead protector, there wasn't anything that was out of the ordinary for the man as he was wearing the standard Konoha shinobi uniform with the chunin flak jacket on top. All in all he seemed like he was a very standard ninja.

That was the image that Tenzou liked to portray. He didn't like being someone who stood out in a crowd. He had had enough of a rough childhood thanks to the sick and twisted work of Orochimaru and that solitude was something that was welcoming.

Knowing what should be done in a situation like this, Tenzou spoke up. "Hello Neji, my name is Tenzou and I hope that you are recovering well from the injuries that you have at the moment?"

Having been around enough high ranking officials in the Hyuga clan, Neji knew that this was in essence a customary statement that was meant to break the ice on the conversation. Cordially, Neji replied with an emotionless face. He still did not know anything about the person in front of him and wasn't willing to give away any information.

"Thank you for your concern, I am fine as of the moment but it will still be a little while before I am able to return to home. May I ask why you wanted to see me?"

With a slight smile on his face, the brown haired man replied in kind to the genin. "I am proud to say that there were not as many casualties on Konoha's side as was first feared. Unfortunately there was still a large amount of casualties on the shinobi side of things due to Otogakure and Sunagakure's initiation on us." Whilst this did not answer the question that Neji had asked, it did answer one that he had on his mind.

"As I am sure you know, bless his soul, one of the people to die in the invasion was the Sandaime Hokage." Had he not been an ANBU captain with one of the best mission records in their history, Tenzou would not have been able to say what he had just said without any facial expression changes. The man was an instrumental part in getting him out of his depression during the times he was forced to spend with Orochimaru when he was using him for tests.

He was the person who encouraged him to join the shinobi academy and it was a choice that would pay dividends in allowing the orphan a way back into society.

The bow of the head from his position in his bed from Neji was that was more formality rather than out of pure sorrow. Sure he was saddened for the village but because he did not know the man on a personal level, it meant that the pain he was going through right now was certainly not as bad as say Asuma Sarutobi was going through.

"With his death, Konoha has been put into a state of severe precaution and we need to increase the number of shinobi we have back up to the amount we lost very quickly; that is the reason as to why I am here." There was a slight widening of the eyes that the ANBU captain noticed before they once again settled into their normal look.

"Now Neji, you might not want to hear this but from the performances that you displayed during your fight, they were not ones that would merit promotion to the rank of chunin." Hearing those words, Neji couldn't help but frown and internally criticize fate for having a hand in him not getting his promotion to the next level.

"Before you get depressed about that; thanks to the rather unique situation that we have been put in due to this fight, Konoha as a whole are going to have to lower their standards for chunin. This is so that we can hopefully recover as fast as possible. This means that you are still in contention for receiving a promotion to the rank of chunin." The smile that was on the boy's face was one that was small but still managed to convey all of his thoughts to the ANBU captain who was an expert in reading people through solely their facial expression. It certainly did not hurt that Tenzou had Hiashi Hyuga as his Jonin-sensei.

The wood user was contemplating on what it was that he should say next. Thankfully Neji was the person who spoke next. "How far away am I from getting that promotion?" Am I really that far that behind what is required for chunin?" The questions that were coming out of the Hyuga prodigy were all valid in the eyes of Tenzou.

"To be honest, you are worthy of becoming a chunin rank in terms of your combat abilities. It is the fact that when you are in a tough situation and you believe that it is fate that is against you, you believe that there is no hope and give up to fate. That is what is holding you back from becoming a chunin. You need to have that belief in that whatever situation you are in, no matter how dire it looks at that point, that you are willing to fight all the way to the death to complete your objective."

Hearing the words from this person in front of him who was obviously a shinobi stronger than he himself was, it made Neji think. The first thing that came to his mind was the fact that Naruto, someone who he had pegged as a person who would be overcome by fate; had defied it and then gone on to beat him in a fight. Knowing that Sasuke Uchiha was the rookie of the year and the way how teams were formed at the top end of the scale, Neji could easily deduct that Naruto was the dead last of his class. Judging by the others from that year's graduating class, Naruto had managed to improve at a rapid rate which he knew was not due to him being a genius. It was through hard work and determination. Just like his sensei and Rock Lee.

_I failed the graduation process a total of three times on my way to becoming a ninja… but you know what the one thing that stuck with me through this whole time? It was my determination to make a change for the better._

_That is what you lack. Nothing in life ever comes easy and the things that you want the most are the things that you have to work the hardest to achieve. I as your friend vow to help you get rid of the Juuinjutsu that plagues your clan but I can't do it alone and I will need your help Neji. _The statement from Naruto that he was willing to call Neji his friend was something that made Neji quite surprised. Even Rock Lee was not as forthcoming as wanting to call him a friend when he turned on instant carnations bitch mode.

Thinking about the words that came from both Naruto and this Tenzou person, Neji was starting to think that maybe fate wasn't the be all and all that he made it out to be. Maybe there was a chance for him to be able to find a way to get out of the place that fate had put him in and have a life outside of being a branch member. Just like the epiphany that he had during his fight against Naruto, Neji was having another big moment in his life as he decided that he could finally be his own person and not the whipping boy of the main branch.

Seeing all of the thoughts that were going through the mind of Neji thanks to his facial expressions, the brown haired man couldn't help but have a small smile on his face. The realisation that Neji was coming to was one that Tenzou felt needed to happen before the next phase of his plan could begin.

"It seems to me that you are finally realising what it means to hold the rank of chunin Neji." This statement alone was enough for the Byakugan user to dislodge himself from his thoughts and turn his attention back to his guest.

"I am not sure whether you know about all of the possible ways for a genin to get promoted to the rank of chunin. What I will tell you though is there is one way that effects your personally." A pin drop could have broken the silence between these two shinobi as the Hyuga prodigy was listening on intently as to what it was that he would have to do get the rank. Pride was most certainly on the line at this point in time.

"For a genin to get promoted to chunin outside of the chunin exams, a Jonin will have to put in a formal application for one of the ANBU captains to personally look into said genin's skills. The ANBU captain would then decide on whether or not they were worthy of the rank of chunin by accompanying them on a mission from the shadows.

The other way is for an ANBU captain to personally endorse a promotion of a genin where they will have to get the written consent from the genin's Jonin-sensei." All from what Neji was hearing, his instincts were telling him that the man in front of him was a member of the Special Forces and was a captain at that! It was never normal for a mere genin to be in contact with someone so high up unless they knew them before the position. It went to show just how much faith Tenzou was putting in the Hyuga clan member right at this point in time.

"Now Neji, I am good friends with Gai-sempai and since the invasion we have had a chat about your future. It might surprise you, but when it comes to serious issues like this, but your sensei can be as serious to talk to as your uncle.

In the end of that conversation, he agreed that if I could get a change in your opinion to one that was acceptable, then he would fully support your promotion to the rank of chunin. From what I have seen just now, I know that you are a changed person and that you will do Konoha proud."

Knowing exactly where this was leading to, the black haired boy allowed for there to be a large smile on his face as he was confident that he was about to receive a promotion to the rank of chunin.

Indeed he was as the ANBU captain in front of him spoke up. "Neji I am happy to announce I believe that you are qualified enough to have the rank of chunin bestowed upon you!" It wasn't necessarily the situation or the place that he thought that he would achieve the rank but Neji could not deny for even one second that it didn't make the occasion any less special. Truth be told, being quite an anti-social person as he was, large events were simply not the type of situation he liked finding himself in. the taijutsu based ninja could only imagine what it would be like if all of the attention was focused onto him. There was only one thing that was missing. That was that his team was not around to congratulate him in achieving this milestone.

Just thinking of his team made Neji frown. Whilst he did not admit it ever, Team Gai was a constant in his life that he had become accustomed to having by his side. Gai-sensei and Rock Lee certainly did not have the greatest of personalities in anyone's eyes… but spending time with them, they had the personalities that grow on you and make you miss them when they are not around. Then there was Tenten. She was the only presence on the team that he was able to speak to for more than 10 minutes without getting some form of headache.

Before any more thoughts could be pondered on, Tenzou spoke up as he had more pressing matters to attend to due to the state of the city. "Now Neji, I would not have bothered to announce my presence if all I was doing was simply promoting you to the rank of chunin.

Konoha is in dire straits at the moment. I will not lie; things are looking pretty dire and serious if not unrecoverable damage could happen to Konoha if one of the other hidden great shinobi villages were willing to attack us. The village hidden in the leaves as a whole needs to rebuild fast.

That is why I am going to offer you an opportunity that will allow you to serve your country as best as possible. I am willing to give you a six month trial of the training and being a chunin before you join the ANBU. During this time you will be trained by me personally as well as some off the side training from some of the other ANBU operatives. You will be going on tougher missions more regularly and you will have a very substantial increase in your wages. Enough that you could work in the ANBU for three or so years and go back to being a chunin and you could live the rest of your life quite comfortably.

It took a while for Neji to digest all of this. It took even longer for him to think through everything that was presented to him. "What would happen to my teammates if I did decide to do this? Will my team get disbanded?" Whilst he was quite an arrogant arsehole at times, Neji did come to care for his teammates and didn't want to just abandon them.

There was a smile on the face of Tenzou. Neji was displaying the true characteristics of being a Konoha shinobi. He was putting the needs of others before his own. "Again, this is not something that you will want to hear Neji but I am going to have to be brutally honest with you.

At this current point in time there is little to no chance of Rock Lee ever becoming a shinobi again despite all of the progress that he has made in this last year and a half. According to Gai-sempai, if he does not get the treatment that he needs within the next two months, then his career as a ninja will be officially over due to unfixable damage to his spine. It was a truly unfortunate injury to fall on someone who was so optimistic." There was a pause as Tenzou assumed that Neji was still dealing with the fact that his teammate was nowhere near the same in terms of personality. He was right.

"Then there is your female teammates Tenten. You might think that she is good now which she is, but with her style of fighting, Tenten will start to stagnate in the coming months and if she does not add anything extra into her arsenal, she will completely stagnate in around about 3-5 years. There is only so much that you can do with ranged weaponry."

In terms of potential, you are the only one at the moment who can go on to becoming someone who is a Jonin. That is of course unless Lee manages to recover from his injuries but as of the state we are in right now, we do not get the time to wait and see. We must act decisively to ensure the best possible outcome for Konoha is attained.

Neji, you have a lot of potential inside of you and as harsh as it is, your teammates are only going to hold you back. Konoha needs all of the strong shinobi that it can get its hands on at the moment. With the training ending in six months' time, I can assure you that you will be at ANBU combat level."

Tenzou knew that it was a dick move saying that Konohagakure needed him to do this but the fact of the matter was that the Mokuton ninja was not lying one bit with what he was saying. Konoha definitely needed a bolstering of their ninja forces and talented shinobi who have the Byakugan were always needed.

There was also the fact that he was stating that he could get Neji up ANBU level shinobi in six months. He was not lying about that either. He would have been arguably one of the weakest people to be classified at that level but he would nonetheless be at the level which was high quality chunin in combat and Jonin level in stealth.

Finally, the one factor that could not be ignored was the money that being in the ANBU granted oneself. A genin received enough money so that it was the equivalent for a part time job for a civilian. It was enough to live off with having to make sacrifices when going out a necessity but it was doable. That was in contrast to the pay of a member of the ANBU Special Forces.

The black ops provided enough of an income to compare that to a full time civilian who had gotten a tertiary degree and had a high paying job. It was enough that if you did not spend much of your money, within a year, you could have enough money to put down for a deposit on a small house.

That was something that Neji was seriously considering. Despite the fact that he had had a recent change of beliefs, Neji still hated the fact that he had to live among the main house. If he ended up taking the position, then he would immediately be able to start renting once his first pay check came in and he would be able to live off of his own.

Thinking about it a bit more, Tenzou said that he would be able to decline the ANBU when the time come if his heart was still not into it by that stage. With that the last though going through his mind, Neji knew that whilst there was a little that he could potentially lose, there was so much more that he could possibly gain from this and that made it too good to refuse.

"Ok, I have decided. I will take you up on your offer, Tenzou-sensei."

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

**Finally! I am done with this chapter! Had a bit of a stumbling block when it came to the fight with Gaara and Naruto but got past that and the rest seemed to follow seamlessly.**

**Forewarning, this chapter has not yet been beta read as I want to get it out as soon as possible to you readers who have been waiting very long for it. Too long in fact.**

**On a side note, I am looking for a beta reader who is willing to cover all of my stories for consistency's sake. If you are interested, then go to my profile and read about the beta reader part and then send a private message my way so that we can chat about it.**

**Hope you all like the update!**


	24. Through the constellation

The feeling of waking up without pain was certainly something that the blonde Uzumaki was used to taking for granted. Never had the genin ninja ever had the feeling of having his whole body literally burning from the inside out. This was certainly not a way that he wanted to wake up to in the future. Naruto had not felt a pain like this before in his whole entire life. Whilst he had had his leg broken before, that was a localized injury where as the one that he had now was one that hurt like fuck all over his body.

It was so painful that he couldn't even move the lower half of his body and he could only barely move the top half of his body. The only part that the snake summoner could use freely was from his shoulders up. This certainly did not give him any chance of scratching the itch that he had on his balls. There was a groan that came out of his mouth to signify the frustrations due to the situation he found himself in.

There was really only one thing that Naruto was able to do. That was open his eyes. Even, that was something that was much harder than what it normally was. The opening of his eyes was something that put Naruto in even more confusion.

Normally, when Naruto woke up, there was always one of two sights that Naruto Uzumaki saw. The nowhere near as usual but still somewhat familiar sight of the white walls and white ceiling of the Konoha general hospital was not in sight. The other was the beige coloured walls and cream ceiling along with a fan that made up his small apartment. That is why when Naruto woke up into a room that had a pale yellow walls and ceiling. He was in a place that he never remembered seeing before.

Turning his neck, Naruto noticed that the bed that he was in either a double or queen sized bed. This indicated that he was not in a place like a hospital or a clinic. The way that the room was laid out with the chest of drawers and a bedside table indicated to Naruto that it was more than likely he was in someone's private residence.

The sunlight that was beaming down on his face only served to further irritate Naruto Uzumaki. He wanted nothing more to get up and close the curtains that were pissing him off. That was not the only thing that was pissing Naruto off. The other being that on the bedside table there was a glass of water. His throat was getting the same burning feeling that the rest of his body was getting. The only comfort that Naruto had, was the fact that the bed that he was in at the moment was one that was insanely more comfortable than the one at the hospital or his house.

It took a while but finally after being up for about a minute to gather his thoughts, the shinobi side of Naruto's brain kicked into gear. _Where am I? What happened after the end of my fight with Gaara? What happened to Konoha after I fell asleep? Did we even win the war? Did anyone that I care about lose their life?_

The last question on the mind of Naruto was the one that he wanted answers to the most. Fortunate or unfortunately, depending on the way that one looked at it, Naruto did not have that many people close to him so the odds in that one of them out of all of the people inside of Konoha dying wasn't that great. To enhance the hope of the people that he cared about not dying, most of them were ninjas so they could potentially defend themselves from any dangerous situations.

Eventually, the more realistic side of Naruto's brain kicked into gear as he realised just how much of a helpless cripple he was at the moment in a place that was potentially enemy territory. The blonde haired boy began to think more on what happened at the end of his fight with Gaara and if there was anything that would help him out now. Unfortunately, there was nothing that Naruto could think of to help him with his predicament. There was no sight of a person coming to his rescue or an enemy coming to capture him. Judging by the way in which he was being held at the moment, Naruto doubted that he was a prisoner of war or he would have been in a less than ideal living arrangement.

The genin of Konoha decided that there was really one thing for him to do considering the fact that he couldn't even move. That was to go back to sleep and try and recover from the injuries that he still had. For some reason the Kyubi wasn't healing them like it normally did.

**Later**

Waking up this time around, Naruto felt the urge of his stomach to consume food. The thing about that that annoyed Naruto was that he still found out that for some reason he could not move his lower body. Naruto was less and less thinking that this was just him not being able to move thanks to his injuries. This was because Naruto could move his arms a bit easier. The great thing about now was that injuries that he had sustained were a little bit better for him to deal with. For Naruto he now was able to focus on something other than the pain he was in. It still wasn't able to get the thoughts away from his mind but at least they weren't at the forefront.

Using his abdominal muscles which were probably the least injured part of his body, Naruto sat up and moved the pillow around and had a better look at the room he was in. from what he could assume thanks to his rather limited childhood, Naruto guessed this was what an adult's bedroom looked like. There was no sign that this was a room for anyone under the age 15. Reaching over to the bed side table, Naruto picked up the glass of water and then immediately drank from it.

Naruto was heavily thankful that whoever it was that put him here for the glass of water. On his dry throat, this was as good as anything else that Naruto could have drank to cure the itch.

Having the time to properly wake up this time around, Naruto noticed that he was covered in bandages. Not just a section of his body, no… all of his body that he could see, Naruto found himself covered in bandages. from memory, the blonde haired boy couldn't think of such an injury that required them but nonetheless, it didn't stop him from looking like one of the mummy's from Sunagakure comic books.

For the first time since his fight with Gaara Sabaku, Naruto was now going to have some human contact as there was a knock on the door as it was being turned open. For the genin shinobi, Naruto was both anxious and nervous as he was not sure who it was behind that door. For all he knew it could have been his mother and father. Naruto was unknowingly close as it was his godfather.

Thanks to his constant contact with the Snake clan, Naruto instantly knew he was going to have to speak with when the door opened. "Jiraiya-sama." Naruto stated and did as best as he could, given the situation that he was in, Naruto did his best to bow his head in recognition of such a powerful ninja.

Unlike many first introductions that people had with Jiraiya, this one with his godson was a little more serious than what he would have liked. Unfortunately, Due to the fact that Naruto Had summoned Manda, there was no hope in hell that he was going to leave anything to chance. He wanted to find out all he could with Naruto and find out how deep his connection with Orochimaru was.

"Naruto Uzumaki, I must congratulate you on an outstanding performance in your fight against Gaara. That single fight was one that once the invasion started was originally intended for a veteran ANBU captain to fight. For a mere genin to be able to not only fight but also subdue a jinchuuriki with the use of his demon's powers is truly remarkable. You allowed many of our shinobi to focus on other fights which significantly reduced our death count. You should be very proud of yourself." _I know damn sure that I, your mother and your father are unbelievably proud of you._

Naruto didn't know what to say. The fight with the red haired shinobi from Suna was the first fight that Naruto had had where he had to step up his game to the highest stage. There had been a lot of shinobi throughout history that when the clutch moment came, they could not deliver what was needed.

This was not even mentioning the fact that Naruto had not even gotten such praise for a job well done. Sure, when he did things right for Team 7, he got praise from his sensei, but since he knew the man's personality, the praise was somewhat muted. That and the fact that Naruto did not know that Kakashi was almost as revered on the battlefield as Jiraiya was because Kakashi spent all of his glory days in the ANBU where the missions where classified.

Had Naruto known the personality of Jiraiya beforehand, the way he acted, the praise might have been a bit different.

"Unfortunately Naruto, there are more pressing things that we have to discuss. That is the manner in which you fought Gaara." Naruto could feel his heart rate quicken and he clenched his fists. He knew what was going to come. It was going to be more of the same thing that came with being the jinchuuriki of the Kyubi no Kitsune. He was in for more judgemental people throwing their opinions in his face whether they were warranted or not. The genin from Konoha assumed that the work that he did in defeating Gaara would be offsetted by the fact that he Summoned Manda who was heavily associated with Orochimaru.

Seeing the darkening facial expressions coming over the face of Naruto, Jiraiya wasn't entirely sure what Naruto was thinking to make them come up. He had a fare idea though. "Naruto, I am sure you know that I am more concerned about you signing the snake contract because of my former teammate, I just want to know how it was that you signed it." The great thing about being one of, if not the best spy in the entire world was that it allowed you to be able to read whether or not people were lying.

Naruto was moderately surprised and it showed on his facial expression. He had initially thought that he was going to be immediately questioned on what was happening with Orochimaru; instead Jiraiya-sama was asking questions about how he signed the snake summoning contract. This meant that the respect that Naruto had for Jiraiya stayed at a high level unlike what would have happened if he was a moronic bigot.

What Naruto did not know was that Jiraiya too know that there were multiple ways of gaining a contact to a summoning clan. Heck! He himself was one of the people who had the more unique ways of going about it. He did the summoning jutsu without any hand seals without any contract and landed in the toad realm; from there on it was history.

"I wasn't feeling my best as I had a mission that I would rather forget and it made me realise that being a ninja wasn't as great as I had envisioned it to be. Waking up, I found a snake lying on my lap and that is how my first contact with the hebi clan came about." Naruto was purposefully not revealing any personal information Jiraiya could tell. Also, from the way that his chakra was feeling at the moment through his sensory jutsu, Jiraiya could tell that his godson was not lying. Thanks to the extensive work whilst being in sage mode, Jiraiya was a great sensor even if he was nowhere near as good as someone like say Inoichi Yamanaka.

There was no chance to get too excited in that Orochimaru had not yet approached his godson. There was a chance that Orochimaru had sent the snake to get Naruto's trust. Jiraiya's musings were cut short when Naruto continued on speaking from where he left off. "The snake then said that I had a lot of qualities that embody what they represent, like how I am ambitious in becoming the Hokage of Konoha for example." Jiraiya could certainly not deny that trying to become the Konohagakure was not ambitious.

"They said that the main reason that they wanted me to join their group was so that they can get rid of the image that has been cast on them because of Orochimaru. The people of Konoha hate him almost as much as the snake clan want him gone. With all of the deeds that he has been doing he has been painting the clan in a bad light and they want him gotten rid of. Sure some people might not think of them as nice people but they are certainly not evil like Orochimaru is."

Jiraiya could hear the muted passion coming from Naruto and knew that what he was saying was true in his eyes, his chakra signature was confirming that. A smile appeared on the face of Jiraiya as he was confident that Naruto had not been approached by Orochimaru but instead by Manda. The silver haired man didn't know what he would do if his former teammate corrupted his godson.

One thing that Jiraiya was concerned about was that Naruto had said that the snake clan was essentially preparing Naruto for a fight with Orochimaru. Jiraiya had seen the potential that Naruto had in him from the fight with Gaara but Naruto was going to have to rapidly improve if he wanted to fight against Orochimaru.

The very truth was that Naruto could have been lying about Orochimaru not contacting him. Jiraiya did not think that it was possible given his own skill in reading people but it was definitely a possibility. What this meant was that Jiraiya was going to act as if he fully trusted Naruto whilst still monitoring the boy closely.

"Naruto, thanks, there are many people in Konoha who do not like Orochimaru, me being one of them, it is very good that you are not in connection with him. I was just making sure that you weren't his apprentice. That would be very bad for Konoha.

Now, you might not know it yet but because of all of the damage that you took when you used the Kyubi's chakra, you have been unconscious for quite a long period of time. You have managed to be unconscious for three days in fact." The eyes of Naruto went wide as soon as he heard this because as far as he knew, the Kyubi's chakra only healed him, he didn't know that it also hurt him.

Seeing the expression on the face of Naruto, Jiraiya's theories in that the snake clan had not had a jinchuuriki as a summoner in at least a very long time became true. What this also meant that Jiraiya was going to have to be the person to deliver the bad news of the death of the Sandaime Hokage. It was still a sore subject for him to deal with by himself and Jiraiya had no idea how Naruto was going to do with finding out that bit of information.

"Naruto, just in case you were lying about not admitting that you were not connected to Orochimaru, I had to put some seals on you to restrict your movement. So now that I am confident that you were approached by Manda and not my former teammate, I will release those seals." As Jiraiya said this, he put both of his hands into the bird seal and channelled chakra to complete the jutsu.

The moment that that happened, Naruto instantly felt as if a weight was taken off of him. The blonde haired boy could now freely move his body. Well as free as he could, considering the injuries that he still had. Naruto believed that he would now be able to walk around with crutches or some other way of helping him walk.

Despite being previously immobile, Naruto knew that Jiraiya was doing the right thing for Konoha. If he was in the Sannin's position, Naruto knew that he would have done exactly the same thing to ensure that Konoha was safe.

"Now Naruto, I have heard you were pretty close with the Sandaime so this might be hard for you to take but there was a fight between him and Orochimaru." Hearing this, the blonde haired boy certainly did not like where this conversation was going one bit. He knew that not everything could go his way in terms of the war but he hoped that he wouldn't have to lose someone close to him. He had no idea what he would do if what he thought that Jiraiya was going to say was true.

Unfortunately, Naruto predicted right as there was no good information to come from the mouth of the silver haired man. "Naruto, I am not sure what the easiest way to say it is… but Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Sandaime Hokage died whilst fighting Orochimaru." The sombre tone in which he said it was enough to make Naruto realise that this wasn't some cruel practical joke. Naruto knew that the bitter truth in that his pseudo grandfather, one of the people who looked at him as someone other than the Kyubi no Kitsune was dead.

"No…. No! That can't be true! He is the Hokage, the strongest ninja in the village. There is no way that he could have died!" Naruto was definitely in denial. Had he been thinking things through, the genin would have remembered just how strong Orochimaru was. Anyone with that skill level as well as such a good shinobi brain meant that anything was possible. Another thing that Naruto also forgot was that his jiji was nowhere near as strong as what he once was. He wasn't as strong now as what everyone once made him out to be. He was no longer the god of shinobi due to old age. He was only holding onto that title so as to scare the other nations into not wanting to attack a weakened.

Looking to Jiraiya to find someone who might be able to deny what had just been heard, Naruto knew that his grandfather in all but blood was now not among the land of the living. It was slow, but the tears eventually started coming.

Due to the better emotional control that Naruto now had compared to say six months ago, Naruto managed to stop himself. In the end, Naruto had very little amount tears coming out of his eyes before they eventually dried up. Naruto had learnt from an early age that crying would get you nowhere in life. It was better to get up from the ground and push on to better things rather than just focus on the misery.

Jiraiya able to see the things that Naruto was going through made an educated guess in that the blonde haired boy was repressing his emotions. Normally, Jiraiya would have gotten him to express them but knowing that he wasn't that close to Naruto just yet, the boy would more than likely become introverted around his presence. It was best to spend some more time with his godson and form a bond rather than just expecting Naruto to open up from the get go.

The rather awkward silence was broken when the stomach of Naruto made its presence known, it was stating the fact that it was hungry. The subsequent chuckle that came from Jiraiya was one that made Naruto slightly less embarrassed. "I'll cook you some lunch. When you're ready, exit the room and come down the stairs, the living room is the second door on the right." With that said, the silver haired man exited out of the room so that he could prepare some breakfast.

Naruto was feeling like a fish out of water. He was in someone else's house and he had no idea what he was supposed to do. This was a first time experience for Naruto as due to his childhood, he hadn't actually stayed at anyone else's for a sleepover. Slightly nervous, Naruto thought that the best thing to do was to simply just follow the words of Jiraiya-sama and do what he asked.

With that in mind, Naruto pushed himself over to the side of the bed and put both of his feet on the wooden floorboards. Pushing off of the bed did not go as smoothly as what everything else that Naruto had done up until that point. Because of the fact that he had had the majority of his calf muscle torn off during the fight a few days ago, there was no muscle to support his weight.

What this meant was that even faster than Naruto managed to get up, he fell down to the ground like a sack of bricks. Also because of such weight that was being put down on such little muscle made pain shoot up through his nervous system straight to his brain. The shout of pain followed shortly thereafter.

Hearing the scream of pain coming from his godson, Jiraiya instantly got to the room where Naruto was and noticed him on the ground. What the blonde haired boy did not notice was the fact that Jiraiya had a rasengan going in each hand just in case there was any sign of the Akatsuki. The moment that Naruto regained himself, he started clutching at his left calf muscle. Bending down to see what was wrong with it, Jiraiya cursed himself because he wrapped it up in bandages.

Naruto's skin was still suffering from the prolonged use of the Kyubi's chakra and that was why he had covered Naruto in bandages to prevent anything stopping the healing process. "Naruto, can you please let me have a look at it, my teammate is the world's best medic ninja so I know a thing or two about injuries."

Listening to the older ninja, Naruto moved his hands back so that he sitting in an upright position. As quickly as he could, Jiraiya started getting rid of the bandages that were on Naruto. In less than a minute they were all gone and Jiraiya instantly saw the problem. Compared to his other leg, the left leg of Naruto was grossly underdeveloped in terms of muscle. Unlike the bulging muscle underneath the knee on the right leg, there was just nothing but skin and bone on the left leg of Naruto.

"Naruto, it seems in the fight, you got an injury to your leg that ripped off the muscle completely. Therefore, you have no muscle to carry your bodyweight. You are going to have to be very careful and put as little weight on it as possible as you grow back the muscle. For regular humans this can take up to half a year depending on the circumstances." The wide eyes of Naruto showed that the blue eyed kid momentarily forgot that he was in a whole heap of pain.

_How the fuck am I going to stay off duty for half a freaking year! There are so many things that I have to do that I won't be able to do if can't be a shinobi for six months. _Before the thoughts of Naruto could get any more of on a different tangent, Jiraiya quickly remedied the situation.

"Thankfully in this situation Naruto, you are not really normal are you?" The rhetorical question was one that Naruto knew not to answer to. Despite the fact that he didn't like being the Kyubi jinchuuriki, the blonde haired boy could not deny that in some situations it certainly came in handy to have a demon stuck inside your gut.

"I reckon with the help of the Kyubi and having heaps of protein in your diet, you could easily grow that muscle back in a month." This certainly lifted the spirits of Naruto. Whilst one month of doing nothing wasn't ideal, it was certainly better than six months. At least his quest to become the Hokage of Konoha wouldn't be put on hold for too long.

"You will probably be able to walk all by yourself without any support in four days to a week's time." Naruto offered a smile as he knew that it was always better to look at things optimistically rather than pessimistically.

"Now don't try and move around, I will be back shortly with some crutches for you to walk on." Nodding at the order given to him, Naruto couldn't help but wonder if this was going to be as annoying as what it was when he broke his ankle. He definitely hoped not, that was a real pain in the ass.

A few minutes later and presto! The silver haired man came back with two scrolls and a glass of water. Opening up one of the scrolls, Jiraiya gave Naruto two small white tablets. The questioning look that Naruto sent Jiraiya made the Sannin speak up albeit briefly. "Pain relievers kid." Nodding in confirmation, Naruto swallowed the tablets before picking up the crutches. He still hadn't gotten any food yet and he was damn hungry!

**Later**

"Oi gaki! Since you're a cripple right now I want to know what type of shinobi you think you are right now and what type of shinobi you want to be in the future." Naruto was confused about this because he had never been asked something like this before. He wondered what the point of it was. Naruto even disregarded the cripple comment as he was curious as to what the Sannin wanted with him.

"At the moment I think that I am chunin rank of a shinobi and my strengths are my kenjutsu and my ninjutsu. My main weakness is genjutsu." Jiraiya nodded, from the reports that Naruto was honest with his assessment of his shinobi skills. Many of genin were over confident and bragged about their skills.

"In terms of what kind of shinobi I want to be in the future… I want to be a shinobi who is good without any weaknesses. I think that to probably make the most of my circumstances, which means that I will have to be a ninjutsu specialist." Jiraiya knew what he was referring to when he said circumstances; he was referring to him being a jinchuuriki. It was good to see his godson making the most of what was given to him by his father.

"Well you are going to have time to work on that because I am willing to teach you something that will greatly help you as a shinobi." Had Naruto been of the same personality type as to the report that his sensei had given him, then he would have tried to get Naruto to learn the rasengan. He wanted Naruto to have a piece of his heritage. More than that though, Jiraiya wanted Naruto to have a connection with his father. In the future Jiraiya knew for a fact that he was going to introduce Naruto to the art of sealing so that he could have a connection to his mother.

That was why Jiraiya had something else in mind for Naruto to learn. Judging by the way that Naruto fought from what he saw in the chunin exams, Jiraiya had the perfect idea for Naruto to learn. Unfortunately, Naruto was a bit pessimistic as he wasn't in the best shape. "But what can I do when I can't even walk?"

"That is a very valid question midget but it does not matter!" the grandiose tone that came from Jiraiya was one that made the eye of Naruto twitch. If there was one thing that Naruto hated being teased about from his childhood, it was the fact that he wasn't tallest of people for his age. Sure the change in diet a few months ago greatly helped, but results in growing taller would not be seen until his next proper growth spurt hit. Naruto was starting to see that legendary shinobi also had personalities too. Little did know Naruto know just how much of a distinct personality that Jiraiya truly had.

In the end though Naruto realised that he was going to get some personalised training from the same man that had trained the Yondaime Hokage; who was he to say no to that? What he learnt from Jiraiya in this short time he could take back to both Manda and Kakashi and then he could improve from there.

Taking his time, Naruto made his way over to where Naruto was sitting, Naruto sat down next to Jiraiya. The reason why it took him a while was because Jiraiya had told Naruto that they were going outside.

What Naruto and Jiraiya didn't know was just how lucky they were at that very point in time. You see, Itachi and Kisame were running around looking for Naruto to see if they could get a quick and easy Bijuu capture after the events that had just taken place recently. They had not managed to find Naruto which was severely pissing off the former Kirigakure ninja as he wanted some prey for Samehada to feast on.

Fortunately for Naruto, he was staying at one of the safest locations in the whole of fire nation. Thanks to all of the money that he had due to the Icha Icha franchise, Jiraiya had enough money to have multiple houses around the elemental nations.

The houses that Jiraiya owned outside of Konoha all had anti chakra sensor seals all throughout premises. These allowed Jiraiya the perfect way to relax and distress when starting a holiday. The thing was though was that Jiraiya needed a place to test the seals out in the first place. A random ninja would have said it was pure luck that Jiraiya chose this house when there were other ones closer by. That was wrong as the silver haired man chose this place for the exact reason. He didn't want to take any chances with his godson's health. Minato and Kushina both would kill him in the afterlife.

The only way for someone to know if there was anyone home was if you had visual sight. That or you knew for a fact that Jiraiya owned the place and that there was a possibility of him being there. Even still, Going up against an S-rank shinobi like Jiraiya was definitely not going to be easy. All of this was only accentuated with the fact that there were lots of trees surrounding the property.

One person who wasn't so lucky about running into Itachi was Sasuke Uchiha. That though was exactly what the younger of the two brother's planned on. When he had found out that Itachi had been in Konoha looking for Naruto as well as putting his sensei into a coma, well Sasuke was very angry at this point in time. The fight if you could call it one was more along the lines of a one sided domination that ended very quickly. The end result was Sasuke lying incapacitated on the ground after the usage of the most powerful genjutsu in Itachi's arsenal. This was a sight that Maito Gai would find when he came searching for the Uchiha heir.

Naruto was unaware to all of this though as he readily waited to find out what his new sensei was going to teach him. Naruto did not have to wait long at all to find out. "What I am going to teach you is the art of handed ninjutsu!" The moment that those words came out of the mouth of Jiraiya, Naruto's eyes widened. Once he learnt this, the blonde haired boy realised that he wouldn't have to put his sword back in its sheath to use ninjutsu. This would mean that he would also have a form of defence when he was just about to go on offence. It would improve his shinobi skills. It was needless to say that the eyes of the blonde haired boy widened.

Even whilst injured, he was still going to get stronger and that made Naruto happy as his dream of becoming the Hokage of Konoha was not going down the drain.

**With Neji**

Naruto was not the only person who was getting training to become a better shinobi. The Hyuga prodigy felt that now he was going to start getting somewhere in his shinobi career. As harsh as it might have been to say, Neji did agree with what Tenzou-sensei had said about his team.

Whilst Tenten was certainly better than the other kunoichi for her age group, his cousin included, there was a significant difference in ability between himself and her. With the way that he was progressing in skill as well as the words of Tenzou about Tenten progressing slowly, that gap was only going to get even bigger.

In a slightly different situation, Rock Lee the difference in skill between the two was going to get even bigger. With the injuries that he had suffered from the damage dealt by Gaara, Lee was not going to be getting better any time soon. Even when he did get better, his muscle atrophy was going to be so severe that it would take a long time for Lee to build up the muscle once more. Finally, if all that wasn't bad enough, by the time Lee got back up to the same level he was before the injury, Neji was going to be so far more advanced it wouldn't even be a contest.

If Neji didn't want to stagnate as a shinobi, he was going to have to distance himself from Team 9. Gai-sensei was going to have to do a lot of missions for the recovering Konoha. It meant that unfortunately Neji was going to be thrown into the cold. Looking back on the offer that came from his new sensei, Neji had no regrets whatsoever with his decision to join Tenzou.

Now that Neji had recovered from his injuries due to the wonderful work of the medical ninjas, the black haired boy now had the all clear to be able to train, Neji was excited for what was about to come.

He did not have to wait long at all as his new sensei came into the clearing. Due to all of the duties that he had, Tenzou got to the point when he spoke up. "Look Neji, there are a lot of ways that you can get better but you will definitely improve much faster as a shinobi if you leave your pride behind."

The scoff that shortly followed was one that not even someone as normally calm as Neji could hold back. The scoff wasn't that Neji thought that the Hyuga taijutsu was so great; it was that Neji thought that he didn't even have an issue with his self-confidence.

The look that Neji gave Tenzou was one that the Mokuton user could see through in an instance. Having the head of the Hyuga of your sensei, the ANBU commander could see right through Neji after having spent so much time with his uncle. Tenzou knew exactly about the arrogance that the clan had concerning their taijutsu.

"For your training, you are going to have to essentially stop training in your taijutsu for the next month." There was what Tenzou described as a look of horror coming on the face of his student. It was understandable as it was what Neji's strong suit as a shinobi was. For his further development into a possible member of the ANBU black ops though, he was going to have to branch out into other areas of combat.

"You don't have to stop training in taijutsu for a whole month. You can do just enough to keep your proficiency, but the majority of your training will be focused on adding some long range effectiveness into your arsenal.

The Hyuga clan might be great when it comes to short ranged combat, but you are pathetic when it comes to long ranged combat. Why do you think that the majority of your clan only become special Jonin and not actual Jonin? It is because that your pride in your Jyuuken prevents you from learning other things that will make you into better shinobi."

Tenzou could see the apprehension on the face of Neji and decided to say one last thing to convert Neji into the thought process of not solely focusing on his Jyuuken . "Both your father and your uncle are / were two shinobi who don't rely solely on their taijutsu and they are / were the two best shinobi that your clan has produced in a generation. If you ever want to reach their levels, you are going to have to stop limiting yourself."

After hearing that his father and his uncle, two out of the three strongest people that he knew on a personal level didn't rely on their taijutsu, Neji was had made up his decision. This was because he wanted to not only be the best shinobi that the Hyuga clan had ever produced, but he didn't want to disappoint his father. There were a lot of insecurities that had not been resolved since his father's death and with the upbringing he had had in the Hyuga clan, Neji knew that his father would want for him to become a strong shinobi.

"I want to become stronger. If that means that I have to learn something else, then I will do it to the best of my ability." As Neji said this, he couldn't help but hide the excitement in his eyes that all kids had when it came to learning something new about being a shinobi. Whilst the upbringing inside the Hyuga clan tried its best to make him grow up fast, unless you did something like what Danzo Shimura did to all of his ROOT Shinobi, then it was practically impossible to destroy a child's curiosity.

Happy with the outcome, Tenzou knew the easiest way to get Neji to be a competent shinobi was to get him into some elemental ninjutsu. Elemental ninjutsu was very broad subject and had a lot of different ways for it to be used. It would greatly enhance the possibilities that Neji had in terms of fighting.

"I'm glad to hear that Neji. Now the first thing that I need to do is channel some of your chakra into this piece of paper. I am sure that you know about the elemental affinities and what the good and the bad for each element are. Well this piece of paper will allow for you and me both to find out what element you are attuned to." The words coming from Tenzou seemed straight forward to the Hyuga prodigy.

Taking a hold of piece of paper from his new sensei's hand, Neji waited little time to find out what affinity he was attuned to. Due to the fact that no one in Team Gai had any interest in learning about elemental ninjutsu, there was no reason for Gai to bother seeing what elements they had affinities to. There was also the fact that the man did not want to remind his prized student of yet another thing that he didn't have access to as a shinobi.

Watching his hand, the black haired boy noticed how the piece of paper turned into a gluggy brown substance, one that Neji would associate with mud. The realisation followed very shortly afterwards as Neji realised that he had an affinity to the Earth Element.

Seeing this in first hand, Tenzou was not too surprised. He had spoken with his sensei on many times about the elements due to his Mokuton bloodline. Hiashi did his best to pass on as much knowledge on the elements as possible. One thing that stuck out in his mind was a speech that his sensei gave to him when he was a chunin just about to join the ANBU black ops team.

"_There are a lot of factors that come into determining how someone gets an affinity to a certain element. A lot of people say that it is something that comes from genetics in that depending on what affinity your parent's had will be the affinity that you have as a shinobi. The other theory is that it is based on the environment that you grow up in as a child and as an adolescent that determines what affinity they have._

_I personally believe that it is a combination of both. There have been cases of people having both parents that live in Konoha with water elemental affinities and their child having a fire elemental affinity. I have also seen a family living in Konoha with water affinities and their child having a water elemental affinity._

_From what I have learnt is that the Majority of the Hyuga clan all have affinities to the Doton element and our Jyuuken has been tested to be more effective with people who have Doton affinity's. The element that said person has also has somewhat of a say when it comes to developing the personality of the wielder. People with Earth elements generally tend to be reserved and introverted whilst not losing the assertiveness and confidence that is sometimes associated with the Suiton element._"

Remembering that lecture that he received from his sensei, Tenzou was fairly confident in what type of element that Neji was going to have. If asked, he wouldn't deny admitting that since the two of them both had the same element, that it was one of the main reasons that he chose to train Neji. If Neji turned out to be someone who had either a Raiton, Katon or Fuuton elemental Affinity, then he would have had nowhere near as much knowledge in what he was teaching him.

"This is good Neji for I am also someone who as a Doton affinity. Now since I have other things that I have to attend to right now, so we will get started on your training." This was something that excited Neji as this was going to be something outside of his comfort zone of taijutsu and he was interested in learning new things.

"Alright, I want you to place your hands into the boar sign, channel some chakra and then place both of your hands onto the ground. From there you are just going to try and feel for any difference in the earth compared to when you do it without your chakra. The final thing that I doubt you will be about to progress that much before you run out of your chakra is trying to make some of the dirt rise out of the ground.

**Later**

What Neji lacked in raw chakra capacity, the prodigy of the Hyuga clan certainly made up for it in fine-tuned chakra control. High chakra control allowed Neji to quickly learn the tasks that he was tasked to do. Neji had placed his hands on the ground and tried to feel the difference that his sensei was talking about. Neji wasn't really sure what he was looking for. It was only when one and a half hour's had passed and the boy was at the depths of his patience did he notice it. From the extended use of chakra and slight exhaustion, Neji was able to feel the vibrations that were running through the ground.

Coming back from yet another meeting that as an ANBU captain he had to attend, Tenzou came to the training ground where he had left Neji to figure things out for himself and was moderately surprised. He honestly did not think that this was something that the boy would have completed in such a short amount of time. It was clear to Tenzou that Neji was definitely a shinobi who had a great deal of potential inside of him. The expectations placed on him and the title of genius being bestowed on him was not unfounded.

"Ok Neji, the next thing that you have to do is try and channel your chakra to where the vibrations are occurring in the earth. What this will do is that it will force the vibrations to move the earth that is above the ground. You don't have to try and control them to move the earth in a certain way. All I am asking for is for you to try and make the ground move. We can look at doing something more technical later."

Nodding in affirmation, Neji knew what he had to do and started thinking about how he would go about it. It was not even half a minute before he turned around to have a look at his sensei only for him to notice that he was gone. There was a slight tick on the face of Neji. He was slightly angry with Tenzou but there was nothing that Neji could do about it. Neji just wasn't used to the major difference in teaching methods that Gai-sensei and Tenzou-sensei had. It was then the slight pain coming from his stomach made the mind of the Hyuga prodigy go off on a tangent.

Due to the kind nature of Gai-sensei, the man had been someone who would always bring lunch for all three of his students. Now this was because both Tenten and Lee were orphans from the Kyubi attack and struggled to pay for their way of life. Any help that they received was help that they gratefully appreciated. Due to the team being possibly affected by this if Neji was the only who was not getting food from Gai-sensei, the man decided to buy lunch for him as well. It was not really an issue with the man because being an Elite Jonin and Arguably the strongest that the village had certainly meant that you got paid quite handsomely.

With him having a new sensei who was not willing to do that though, it meant that the hungry Neji had to go and find something to eat by himself. It was not as if it was something that he didn't know how to do… It was just that it is a situation that he wasn't entirely comfortable in.

Once getting the food, the boy had to use his Byakugan to find his way to back to where he was training. Hey! It was not his normal place to train and it was the first time that he had even been there. Neji had a perfectly viable excuse for not getting there the fastest possible way.

Having an hour lunch break, Neji got back to his training and put as much focus and intensity as what he would do when it came to his Hyuga taijutsu and Hyuga ninjutsu.

4hours later and Neji was absolutely exhausted. He had spent all of his time and chakra on trying to do what his sensei had asked of him. Those two hours brought frustration to Neji as he quickly learnt that trying to control the vibrations going through the ground was much harder than he first thought. The main thing that the Hyuga prodigy cursed was the simple issue in that he didn't have enough chakra and had to use it very sparingly.

The black haired boy resolved that from now on, he would increase his chakra reserves. This was so that he could use future Doton ninjutsus that he learnt in combination with his taijutsu and his Hyuga clan Jutsus.

In the end though, the amount of fatigue that Neji was suffering from was worth it. The Byakugan wielder was successful in the task that he had set out to accomplish. Neji had managed to control the vibrations going through the ground and create a hole in the ground. It might have not been much in comparison to all of the potential that Doton jutsus contained, but for someone who was a first timer, it was quite remarkable the amount of progress that Neji had made in one single day. It was a job well done in the eyes of Neji as he fell onto his back and stared at the setting sun.

_Whilst my original goal was to become better than the entire Main branch by beating them at their own game… but now, thanks to Naruto, I don't want to be a caged bird to them. I want to be my own person. I want to be someone who isn't just another standard Hyuga. I want to be something more than that._

_Hopefully with this training in Doton, I will be able to improve to a much higher level than what I would have done being in that cage of broken dreams._

As these self-reflecting thoughts of himself took place in his mind, the black haired boy did not realise that there was someone coming. On reflection, he would have cursed himself as it could have been a possible enemy. Thankfully though, it was only his new sensei.

"Well I must say you managed to do more than I expected from you. I am impressed with how quickly you picked this up." As Neji was getting out of the trance that he was in, there was a smirk of superiority that was etching onto his face as he was proud of what he had done. He didn't think that anyone else he knew would have been able to accomplish such a thing.

Thanks to the talking with his sensei as well as Neji's sensei, Tenzou knew that the Hyuga prodigy didn't need any more of an ego boost. "I wouldn't hold that smile on your face for very long. Tomorrow is the first day with me being your sensei that I have off. This means that I will finally have a chance to see how good of a shinobi you really are. In conjunction, you will also have to replicate the same proficiency in Doton manipulation that you showed just then. Unlike your other senseis who have held back, I will not be holding back _(as much)_ so be prepared for some injuries." All the while Tenzou was saying this, he was using his patented death stare which he had learnt from Hiashi Hyuga. Whilst his was certainly not as good because he did not have Byakugan, it was still formidable.

Doing his best, Neji tried to display his best poker face to and make it out as if he was not intimidated at all. That was not to be however as a veteran member of the ANBU black ops, Tenzou knew how to spot a bluff.

Like his commanding officer in the ANBU, the Mokuton user decided to instantly changed the mood as he spoke up. Given the subject, it was prudent that there was a change in tone. "Now Neji, due to you being in the hospital for all of the time since your fight with Naruto, you don't know how much damage your words have done to the reputation of the Hyuga clan.

The civilians that make up Konoha are looking at the Hyuga clan with a new light and I must say that it is not as positive of a light compared to before. Hearing the stories about father have made their view of the main branch very sour. Both me and Hiashi decided that your safety is most secure from irate main branch members is if you have a prolonged period of absence from the clan estate."

The black haired boy was slightly surprised that this was something that Hiashi-sama agreed to. Neji thought that out of all people Hiashi-sama would be the one who would be the angriest about what he said. He thought that his uncle would want him at the estate so that his uncle could punish him for what he had said.

"That is why I am willing to allow you to stay at my place until you have enough money to rent an apartment with some stability. In preparation for you learning how to live by yourself, you will have one week to eat the food in my house but after then, you will have to buy your own." Neji didn't know what to say.

He couldn't even move a muscle as he was suffering from a mild case of chakra exhaustion. "Fine, whatever, just let me rest for a bit. I am too tired to care at the moment."

**With Naruto**

Things were going great for Naruto. He was getting much better in the use of his one handed seals. It was hard work but he was proud with the progress that he had made. The first thing that his new sensei had made him do was to do a jutsu without his hands touching but still being as close as possible.

This was harder than first thought for Naruto as he thought that it would be a walk in the park. It was far from that as the blonde haired boy had several of his wind ninjutsu blow up in his face. It was thanks to the Kyubi no Kitsune that the genin did not have any scars littering his face.

Naruto was not only thankful for the Kyubi healing his injuries that stemmed from botched training attempts. The blonde haired boy was also thankful for the giant fox demon's ability to heal serious injuries. Jiraiya had been underestimating the power that the Kyubi had when it came to regeneration. The crippling injury that he had suffered at the hands of the Ichibi no Shukaku was now nearly at 65% in comparison to where it was at before the attack.

Naruto could now walk on it without any form of pain whatsoever and it had only been one and half weeks since weeks since he had his fight with Gaara! There was obvious discomfort from Naruto though when he did anything other than walking. A slight grimace marred his face when he jogged, there was full blown pain when he ran and there just was not one possibility of him sprinting at full speed whilst enhancing it with chakra.

Thanks to the conversations that he had had with his new sensei, Naruto knew that even when it did heal up, he was going to have to go and completely rebuild his muscles in that leg. It was going to take a while before he got up to full speed once more.

Speaking of his new sensei Jiraiya-sama, Naruto's initial opinion of the man had drastically changed now that he knew just what type of hobbies the man had. Never had Naruto thought that the man who wrote the book Icha Icha was none other than one of the legendary Densetsu no Sannin.

A person who had the title of being one of the Densetsu no Sannin should carry themselves with a certain level of decency. It was as if there was just an insanely horny teenager trapped in a man's body. It might have been the fact that he was getting groomed by the snake clan who detested such behaviour but Naruto thought that even if he wasn't approached by the snake clan, he would have still thought that Jiraiya was an embarrassment and a let down to the title bestowed upon him by Hanzo of the Salamander.

Orochimaru was a giant cunt who was touched in the head but he was at least fitting of the title of one of the Legendary Three Ninja in the eyes of Naruto. He carried himself as a war veteran that deserved all of the respect and fear that people had for him before he betrayed Konoha. Naruto could only wonder what type of person Tsunade was like. The silent admiration that he had for the Densetsu no Sannin after reading all about Orochimaru was slowly depleting as he saw just what they were truly like away from the battlefield. The blonde haired boy would be in for a massive surprise when he found out just what type of person Tsunade Senju was when outside of a fight.

Breaking Naruto out of his retrospective thoughts on what had happened in the last little while was Jiraiya. "Oi Gaki! Now that you aren't that much of a liability any more, it's time for me to get down to business." The attention of Naruto was given to Jiraiya although this was not done without glare being sent in the direction of the Toad Sannin.

Unaffected by the look his godson was giving him, Jiraiya continued to speak. "Now I am going to tell you the real reason as to why I picked you up after your fight and didn't just leave for you in the clearing for the medical ninjas coming. We have a mission that we have to complete."

The moment that the words came from his mouth, Naruto noticed the immediate mood change in the Seal Master. It showed the boy that maybe he was wrong when it came to the man in front of him. Maybe when the situation called for it, he could turn on his shinobi mode.

Not only was Jiraiya becoming serious, Naruto instantly gave the silver haired man his undivided attention as he wanted to absorb as much information as he possibly could when it came to his next mission. He wasn't dumb enough to not notice that if he was being specifically picked to go on a mission with one of the Densetsu no Sannin, then it was a mission of paramount importance.

"Due to the unfortunate death of the Sandaime Hokage, Konoha is at one of its lowest points in a long time. This means that we have to rebuild as quick as possible and with as much stability as can be afforded. To do this, Konoha will need a new Hokage to govern the village." When the bombshell was dropped on the blonde haired boy, his eyes went as wide as saucers. His mind instantly started going through all of the people that would be able to do the prestigious job of Konoha's Hokage, the service and dedication that it needed.

The first thought that ran through his mind was his sensei Kakashi Hatake. The man was a decorated legend of the ANBU black ops and he was someone who had copied a thousand jutsus during his time as a ninja. He was someone who garnered respect from everywhere he went in Konoha. This meant that he was also someone who gathered fear every time he went outside of Konoha's walls. His sensei was someone who was always late but Naruto knew that that was something that would easily change if he was given the title of Hokage.

The only other person that he knew that was capable of becoming the Hokage and doing the job its justice was Jiraiya-sama. Whilst he knew that the man was not the most serious of people all of the time, Jiraiya was someone who was incredibly powerful and with him alone being inside Konoha on a constant basis, he would prevent every army from attacking just with his presence alone.

There was only one other person that Naruto could think of who had the required skill level of a shinobi that is required for being a Kage and also had the right mentality to be able to lead the village through tough times. That person was Tsunade Senju. It was definitely pre-judgemental on the behalf of Naruto but he had this belief that since she was the student of the third Hokage and a direct relative to the first and second Hokage's, then she would be more than ideal for the job. With all of her medical ninjutsu, she would be able to treat all of the injuries that had happened in the war and hopefully she would heal Rock Lee.

Because of the fact that both he and Jiraiya were outside of the village right now meant that there was only one option for the position of Hokage. If they were going to appoint Jiraiya-sensei or Kakashi-sensei to be the Godaime Hokage, then they wouldn't have needed to travel to wherever they were right now. The smart mind of Naruto was easily able to think of the outcome.

"Tsunade-sama is going to be the Godaime Hokage of Konoha isn't she sensei?" Naruto said with a blank look on his face.

Much to Jiraiya's delight and surprise, he was impressed with how quickly Naruto had come to that thinking. Watching his godson think things through brought a lot of melancholy to the man. It was as if he was looking at Minato growing up for a second time. Those thought were quickly pushed to the depths of his mind as he wanted to focus on Naruto and not on Minato. It would be a disservice and an injustice if he did anything of the sort.

"That is correct Naruto, if you keep your thinking as sharp as that, then you are going to become a Jonin in no time at all." The praise was not lost on the genin as he was still not really used to getting praise and complements from people in general let alone such an important person as Jiraiya. He gave a slight blush and a bashful smile in return as he wasn't really sure what he was supposed to do.

It was then in an instant that the respect and admiration that was developing for his sensei was gone as Jiraiya reverted back to his normal personality. "Now come on you little brat, we are leaving in ten minutes for Tanzaku Gai! Ahhh Tanzaku Gai… they have some of the greatest hot springs and bars around. There's bound to be some hotties that can be research material for my next books!" The hung head of Naruto was the perfect description for being surrounded by the personality of Jiraiya-sama.

**On the road**

Naruto could tell that there was something that was on the mind of his newest sensei. Jiraiya would still do the customary blatant stare at any above average female that he saw. This stare though wasn't for as long as normal as the man went back to more important thoughts.

Whatever it was that was bugging his sensei, it wasn't important enough for the man to tell Naruto on their search for Tsunade. Naruto was even tempted to ask Jiraiya-sensei as to what was bugging him so much. One thing that Naruto wasn't going to question though was the fact that type of accommodation that they were sleeping in.

Normally when one went out on a mission, they would sleep in the safest, best hidden places to prevent anyone from attacking them. This usually meant that they were going to have to sleep high up in the tree tops or on the rough ground surrounded by some bushes. That was what Naruto was half expecting. What Naruto had fully grasped the concept of though was the fact of just how rich his sensei was.

Because at least 3 / 4 of the entire male population and a small minority of the female proportion had purchased either one of his books or the recent movie that came out, it meant that Jiraiya was filthy rich. Enough so that the man could arguably be called the richest shinobi to ever live.

All in all what this meant that every time that the two decided to stop walking and find a place to sleep, they would be staying in four and five star hotels. The bed quality was even better than the one at his own home so Naruto was definitely happy with the outcome. What was even better was that he didn't have to pay even a single cent. Jiraiya-sensei said something about it being the duty of a sensei to look out for his students.

Naruto was not really sure what the silver haired man meant by that statement as it seemed that there was more to it than just that. It also made the jinchuuriki wonder what Jiraiya-sensei meant when he said that he was his student. Naruto thought that when the mission was completed, he was going to be going back to Kakashi-sensei's tutelage. With the way that the Toad Sannin had worded things, it seemed that he was going be Jiraiya's student on a bit more of a permanent basis. Naruto felt kind of bad for Kakashi-sensei for getting a new sensei but the blonde haired boy he didn't have to give up having his Jonin-sensei as a teacher to be the student of one of the Densetsu no Sannin.

As Naruto was just about ready for bed, there was a knock on the door of his room. "Yes, you can come in sensei." Naruto called out wondering what the man wanted. Judging by the seriousness of Jiraiya's facial expression, Naruto knew that it was something that was worth devoting all of his attention to.

"Naruto, as I am sure that you know all of the benefits when it comes to using your inner demons chakra, but what I am fairly confident in is that you are not aware of the detriments it has." Jiraiya stated to Naruto as he sat down on the bed that Naruto was already lying in.

Normally, Naruto would give someone his undivided attention when they were talking to him just because it was the polite thing to do. When it came to someone who had as much experience as Jiraiya-sensei telling him information about his Bijuu, it got to the point where the blonde haired genin that he blocked out everything else.

"When you use it when you are not fully grown, it takes time of your life span Naruto." The widening of eyes and the gasp that came from his mouth was all that Jiraiya needed to know to know that Naruto did not know about this.

Shortly after the widening of his eyes, Naruto felt the panic and fear settling in and he had no idea how much of his life span using the Kyubi's chakra costed him. "Jiraiya-sama, do you know how much damage I have done to myself?" The urgency that was in his godson's voice made damn sure to Jiraiya that this was not a subject to joke around on.

"It's hard to judge as there are quite a number of things that you have to factor in. You have to factor in your age at the time when you used it which I assume is twelve. You also have to factor in how much of the beast's chakra that you used when you used it. Finally, you have to factor in how long you sustained the use of the Bijuu's chakra. No matter what type of seal you have, this damage will be the same for a jinchuuriki."

From the look given to him by his godson, Jiraiya knew that was not the right answer to give. He had to give an answer with a number. "I'd guess that you probably chew up five years of your life span with using as much Bijuu chakra as you did for as long as you did in your fight with Gaara."

When Naruto heard this, the only thing that he could do was just look down into the palm of his hands and silently think on whether or not the trade was worth it. The harsh reality was that no matter how hard Naruto tried to convince himself it was worth it, he knew that he couldn't reverse the damage even if he tried. It was a weird comfort as it meant that he didn't have to think about it that much

"What happened in the past stays in the past" was a quote that Naruto had heard before and it fitted the situation perfectly. Seeing the multitude of emotions that were going on through the face of his godson, Jiraiya knew that he had to do something that would lift the boy's spirits.

"Now Naruto, I can't forbid you from ever using the Kyubi's chakra, but I can train you to become strong enough so that you will never have to use the Kyubi's chakra again. Whad'ya say?"

Thinking about it, it wasn't really that hard for Naruto at all to accept the offer from his sensei. Getting an offer from the same person who trained the Yondaime Hokage who was regarded as the best shinobi of his generation. This in return for him not using something that cut down his lifespan every time he used it? Yes, it was an easy decision for Naruto to make.

"Alright then Jiraiya-sensei, I promise that I won't use the Kyubi's chakra unless there are absolutely no other options left."

The smile that was on his face was quite large and Jiraiya was happy with the outcome. "Good! Tomorrow you are going to be learning something that you were destined to learn. That is the art of fuinjutsu! Now get to sleep as there is a big day ahead of us tomorrow.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note: This chapter took a bit longer to come out than originally planned. I am going to be taking a slight break from this story as I want to catch up on some of my other stories.<strong>

**Don't worry as this break will not be as long as the last break that I had on this story. I have a few stories that all have like 2k words on them so they shouldn't take that long to finish.**


	25. And I can't see tomorrow

Naruto was curious as to what Jiraiya meant when the man said that he was going to teach something that Naruto was destined to learn. It was something that made Naruto start to think. Was this something not that important that anyone and everyone could learn or was it something that was important but yet "he" as the jinchuuriki of Konoha was destined to learn?

The other possibility was that Jiraiya knew something about his heritage that he himself did not know. Admittedly, after so many times of asking about who his parents were and getting no distinct answers, the blonde haired boy had given up trying to find out anything about where he came from. It was just too painful for him to think about. He didn't want to think about it just in case he had gotten his hopes for nothing. If however, Jiraiya brought it up, then Naruto might have the chance to dream about finding out about who his parents were / are.

His curiosity was bugging him so much that Naruto decided that he just had to ask. "Jiraiya-sensei, you said that you had something that was my destiny to learn, can you please tell me what it is?"

Being someone who was wrapped around Tsunade's fingers even though he got no sex in return, it was fairly easy to guess that Jiraiya would be pretty much do the same thing for his godson. That was why Jiraiya offered little to no form of resistance in answering Naruto's question. "Well kid, you are going to learn the art of Fuuinjutsu!"

Instantly, Naruto had a smile on his face as he knew that Fuuinjutsu was something that was very hard to learn. What Naruto also knew was that Jiraiya was the best person to learn the art of sealing from. It was he who taught the Yondaime Hokage how to do it. The very same man regarded as the best seal master in a generation. The blonde haired boy hoped that he would pick it up as from what he had read, becoming a seal master was possibly one of the hardest things that a shinobi could do.

These thoughts were inside the mind of the blue eyed boy before he remembered that this had something to do with his destiny. Naruto wanted to know whether or not this was because he was a jinchuuriki or for some other reason. There was a lot at stake and Konoha needed there to be some form of security on the Kyubi no Kitsune at all times. "So why exactly is this part of my destiny Jiraiya-sensei?"

Naruto hadn't said this in a serious tone of voice but the look that Jiraiya gave him was one that was the complete opposite of that. "Naruto Uzumaki, I want your complete honesty when I ask you this next question." Naruto wasn't sure what Jiraiya was talking about but the boy did note that his sensei had used his last name. There was a rising hope inside Naruto as he hoped on some off chance that he might find something out considering his orphan status.

"Naruto, do you know who your parents are?"

"No, I don't Jiraiya-sensei, I am sorry if that doesn't help you."

Now Naruto judged himself as a quite a good person when it came to judging facial expressions. He thought that he could tell what a lot of people were thinking just by what their face looked like. Unfortunately for the blonde haired boy, he had a snowball's chance in hell in being able to read the facial expression of his sensei. That and also the fact that once again, his mind was brought back to the painful fact that his parents weren't around to care for him.

The stone cold glance that Jiraiya had as he looked off into the distance was one that Naruto could admit to being slightly concerned over. He had never seen the silver haired man so serious before in his life. Judging this by the fact that Jiraiya was someone who was always happy and jovial, Naruto had a right to be concerned.

All of a sudden though, It twisted into one of rage as the Toad Sannin sprinted off towards the nearest tree. Naruto barely managed to catch a glimpse of it but the war veteran made a massive blue sphere appear in his hand as he thrusted it into a tree. The blonde haired boy did not recognize that this was the rasengan. It was the famed jutsu of the late fourth Hokage, Namikaze Minato. This time in an upgraded fashion.

Not a moment later and the blue sphere inside the hand of Jiraiya expanded as he leapt back. Shortly thereafter, Naruto watched the tree disintegrate into nothingness with an explosion.

A wide eyed expression was all but mandatory for Naruto as he had never seen any form of jutsu that could hope to compete with the awesomeness which was the Rasengan. He had no idea what the fuck that jutsu was but he hoped that he could persuade Jiraiya into teaching it to him.

Before he could do that though, the attention of Naruto was dragged back to his silver haired sensei. "That fucking shit flinging cunt!" Now, in the Konoha culture, one thing above all else was that swearing was profusely frowned upon and looked down on. For someone to say any swear words, it must have been something very serious. When Naruto heard the two worst words that he knew, well he was surprised.

The good thing though was that Jiraiya was not directing his anger on him. He didn't want to be on the receiving end of that jutsu that obliterated the tree.

"What was all that about Jiraiya-sensei!" Naruto questioned with slight alarm and bewilderment.

"Sorry about that gaki, Hiruzen and I argue on quite a lot of things and your "destiny" as I put it is one of our most heated topics." Now this was definitely something that had piqued the interest of Naruto, there was an argument between Jiraiya of the Densetsu no Sannin and his Jiji, the Sandaime Hokage. If two people of that high stature having arguments over him, then whatever it was that they were talking about had to be damned important.

He knew that he didn't want to think about it but he couldn't help it. There was always going to be the dream inside the orphan boy to find out something about his parents. What Naruto wanted was the closure that the information provided. For too long had he waited wanting to know more and now this was hopefully his chance to find out! "Jiraiya-sensei, why were there were arguments concerning my destiny, is it something to do with my heritage?"

Something that was only learned through experience, Jiraiya managed to calm himself down before he started speaking to Naruto. "There have been many arguments between me and the Hokage over the issue of telling you who your parents are." Jiraiya knew that he was opening a can of worms with this statement but he also knew that an Orphaned child deserved to know who his parents were.

Indeed it did open a can of worms as the eyes of Naruto went very wide. He couldn't properly comprehend what he was being told. From what his mind was assuming, Hiruzen Sarutobi, his grandfather in all but blood was not willing to tell him who his parents were when he had asked the question beforehand.

It was betrayal of the harshest kind as far as Naruto was concerned. The thing that he wanted to know the most in his life, more than the most powerful jutsu was who his parents were and what had happened to them. Whenever the blonde haired boy had asked the question of who his parents were, the Sandaime Hokage had always responded with a sad smile and said that he did not know who they were.

With Jiraiya saying that the Sandaime did actually know who his parents were, Naruto's insanely high view of the man was pretty much shattered into pieces. He had absolutely no idea what he was supposed to do or think.

That was something though that he could think about at a later date. There were more important things for him to think about. That was that he could now finally find out who his parents were. From what he could judge, Jiraiya was willing to tell him who they were. The budding anticipation inside was him was about to come to the surface. "Sensei, can you please tell me who my parents are." He didn't want to use it. He didn't like having to use it. Whenever he did use it, it made him feel really weak of heart but Naruto didn't care any less right at this point in time.

The sad kicked dog look was one that accompanied Naruto as he said this as hoped that it was enough to make his sensei feel sorry for him. What Naruto didn't know was that this was something that Jiraiya would easily tell him anyway without the puppy dog look. All that served to do was to make Naruto realise that he pretty much had his sensei wrapped around his finger. It was something that Naruto would have to look into at a later date.

"Sure thing kiddo" and before Jiraiya could even say anything more, Naruto had jumped as fast as he possibly could and gave the silver haired man the biggest hug he could ever muster. A smile marred Jiraiya's face as he affectionately rubbed the hair of his godson. These moments in times were ones that unfortunately Minato and Kushina would miss out on. With him being family less himself, Jiraiya was going to make the most of this situation as he hoped that he formed a bond with Naruto like what he had with Minato.

The touching moment was getting a bit awkward so to hopefully stop that, Jiraiya started speaking. "How about we go and sit on the grass over there underneath the tree Naruto?" All that the blonde haired boy did was nod his head. Before he could even relinquish the hug and get over there, Jiraiya used the **Ninpou: Shunshin no Jutsu (Ninja Arts: Body Flicker Jutsu.)**

**Underneath the tree**

With both of them sitting down in the crossed leg position, Jiraiya pulled one of the scrolls from his back and plonked it onto the ground. What Naruto noticed was that there were multiple different seals all over it. The blue eyed boy wondered if whether not they were storage scrolls within storage scrolls. He had no idea if it was even possible but Fuuinjutsu was a broad subject. Thankfully, he was going to learn the art from one of the best seal masters around.

"Now Naruto, I am fairly confident in that you do not know this but there is an actual Uzumaki clan." It seemed as if it was a common theme for the day as yet again there was a wide eyed look on his face. The shock and awe littering through his eyes was easy for such a veteran shinobi like Jiraiya to see. It brought a smile to his face. Despite acting like Minato for a majority of personality, it was easy to see that there was a lot of Kushina inside of him as well.

Not needing to be told to continue on, Jiraiya resumed speaking. "They were a great and a very proud that hailed from the land of whirlpools." Due to all of the studying that he had done to improve himself as a shinobi, Naruto knew where that was situated.

"They were also one of the most revered clans in the world. They were alongside the likes of the Uchiha, Senju and Hozuki clan of Kirigakure. Unlike the other clans who had a definitive bloodline, the Uzumaki gained their fame for their skills in the art of Fuuinjutsu." Realisation rung through in the brain of Naruto as he now knew why it was his destiny to learn how to be a Fuuinjutsu user. The Uzumaki boy was surprised to hear that his clan was on par in terms of prestige and fear with some of the most revered clans in the entire elemental continents.

It brought a question to his mind though, if his clan was so powerful and revered, why was he living in Konoha instead of living with the rest of his family. So when Naruto gathered his thoughts, he asked his godfather just that.

The moment that this questioned was asked, the happy mood that Jiraiya was now gone. It was replaced with a more sombre mood as Jiraiya knew that what had happened to the Uzumaki clan was not warranted. "Naruto, because of their fame, there were a lot of people out there that didn't want them around. Unfortunately, unlike all of the other clans that I previously mentioned, the Uzumaki clan was the only one that did not live in one of the five great shinobi villages."

When Naruto heard this, there was a sad look on his face. He knew where this was going and it wasn't something that he wanted to hear. He needed to though for the closure that it was going to provide. "Just get it over with…" the blonde haired boy muttered underneath his breath.

"It was a combined effort from Kirigakure and Kumogakure towards the end of the second great shinobi war which took Uzushiogakure by surprise. That and the fact that the combined forces were simply too strong and over powered the Uzumaki clan.

Not even Konoha who had an alliance with Uzushiogakure were able to respond in time and send a force adequate enough to hold back the enemy shinobi. We were only able to send a small team of highly trained shinobi led by my teammate Tsunade to Uzushio and find some stragglers. There were a few people that Tsunade found but they were all civilians and none of them were Uzumaki's… except one. That person was Kushina Uzumaki who later turned out to be your mother Naruto. "

There was a pensive intake of breath from Naruto as he was very close to finding out who his mother was. As far as he was concerned, a name was not enough but it was a great start to finding out more. If there was a picture though, it would relieve a lot of the stress that he was suffering from. "Jiraiya-sensei… do… do you have a picture of my mum?" Like a lot of questions that would be asked today, this one was asked with hesitancy as Naruto was both nervous and anxious to finding the answers. It was certainly a wild question to ask but Naruto had some sort of feeling that there was more of a connection between Jiraiya and his mother than what the silver haired man was letting on.

"Yes, yes I do have a picture of her." Jiraiya said with a smile on his face, he couldn't wait to see the look on the face of Naruto. It would not be one that he would not soon forget.

Looking at the seals on the giant scroll, Naruto noticed that Jiraiya stopped on one titled memory lane. Pausing over the kanji for a bit, the silver haired man used a very small portion of his chakra to open up the seal inside a seal. What popped out was a massive book that Naruto wanted so desperately to open and look inside.

However, thanks to his training from the snake clan, Naruto knew that it was incredibly rude. This was not even including the fact that Jiraiya could have prevented him before he even had the chance to look through the photo album. Naruto did not have to wait long at all as the Toad Sannin pulled out one of the photos from the second page.

The moment that it was in his hands, Naruto would not move his eyes away for anything. The picture of the woman smiling was one that Naruto was going to commit to memory. They way how her vibrant red hair gleamed in the sunlight as well as framed her face almost perfectly made Naruto think that the woman was the most beautiful person in the world.

"You have your mother's eyes you know that." It was more of a statement rather than a question as Jiraiya did not expect any sort of response. The son of Kushina was too busy looking at the photo in his hands. He did in fact see the resemblance that he and his mother had when it came to their eyes.

This also brought Naruto to the realisation that apart from his eyes, Naruto did not actually look that much like his mum. The genin assumed that he looked more like his father even though he had no idea who the person was. It was no surprise that there were tears running down the face of one Konoha genin right now.

It was 10 minutes later that Naruto had decided that he had finished committing his mother's appearance to memory. With that done, he started to think things he had repressed a long time ago. Did his mother abandon him when she found out that he was the jinchuuriki of the Kyubi Kitsune? Naruto really didn't want for that to be true. Looking back at the smiling visage of his mother, Naruto just had some kind of feeling that his mother didn't abandon him. If she did anyway, then in his mind, she was not worthy of having the title of mum.

There was also another question on the mind of Naruto. How did Jiraiya-sensei have a picture of his mother when not even the Sandaime Hokage did? How close was the connection between the two? "Sensei… how do you have a picture of my mum… she wasn't one of your conquests was she?" Naruto knew a lot about the personality of his sensei despite having only been around him for a short period of time. Admittedly, he would lose a bit of respect for his mum if she was someone who had participated in certain activities with Jiraiya-sensei.

Affronted at the accusation that he would try and sleep with Kushina of all people, Jiraiya sent a fairly strong glare towards Naruto. The red haired girl was essentially his daughter in law as far as he was concerned. There was no chance in hell that he would ever try something like that.

"No you little shit, there is no way in hell would I want to do have sex with your mum. Plus, she was already happily married and wouldn't do anything with anyone other than her husband," If Jiraiya was trying to keep a secret in trying to not tell Naruto who his father was, then he was doing a very bad job. Thankfully though, he wasn't at all concerned with keeping that secret. There had been too many things kept from Naruto as a kid, letting him know of who his father was a small thing that he could do to make it up to his godson.

"Wait you also know who my dad is! Can you please tell me who he is and if possible, can you please let me see a photo of him." Naruto asked with obvious exuberance in his voice. He was one step closer to having a lot of self-imposed weight on his shoulders taken off.

There was a small smile on the face of Naruto as he saw that his sensei nodded. His heart was pounding a million miles an hour as he was waiting in anticipation to find out who his father is. "Naruto, there was a law that the Sandaime Hokage passed that stated that no one would be able to tell you who your father was until you had achieved the rank of chunin. This was done as a hope to ensure your safety."

Instantly, the mind of Naruto went into shock, what the fuck kind of law was that! Why the fuck would the Sandaime Hokage make such a law? Naruto felt betrayed by the man who he saw as his grandfather in all but blood. The one thing that Naruto wanted to know more than anything was where he came from.

The worst part about it was that because he was not a chunin right at this moment, the blonde haired boy would have to wait until the mission was over before he could even find out who his father was. The fact that his promotion to the rank of chunin had not even been confirmed yet so there was still the possibility that Naruto might not even get the rank. If he had to wait another six months to find out who his father was, well it safe to say that Naruto didn't know what he would do.

Once again though, Jiraiya came to the rescue. "But because Hiruzen-sensei isn't around to enforce the law..." Jiraiya stated to the blonde haired boy. The sly smile that was on the face of his sensei was one that relieved Naruto as an imaginary weight had been lifted off of his shoulders.

"Naruto, if I didn't think that you were worthy of having the rank of chunin bestowed upon you, then I would not tell you this despite the passing of the Sandaime Hokage. You have shown that you deserve the rank of chunin through your performances both in and outside of the chunin exams.

Unfortunately the rank of Sannin has no official legislative and decision making power. The only people apart from the Hokage who has the power to promote shinobi are the advisors to the Hokage as well as past and present ANBU captains. When we get to Konoha, you can go directly up to Kakashi and he can give you a promotion on so you don't have to wait for Tsunade to get an idea of your skills." The praise was not lost Naruto when he heard what his sensei had said.

The man was already becoming an influential role model despite the short amount of time he had spent with the man. A smile was brought to Naruto's face when the blonde haired boy found out that he could go to his Jonin-sensei and get a promotion from him instead of the Hokage. Naruto felt that it would be more significant if he received it from Kakashi-sensei since he knew the man on a personal level.

Speaking up once more, Jiraiya got the attention of his godson back onto him. "Now Naruto, before I tell you who your father is, I need you to take deep breaths as you count to ten inside your mind. This revelation is going to be even more emotionally draining for you than hearing who your mother was." Jiraiya stated as he was preparing a **Fuuinjutsu: Gogyō Fuuin (Sealing arts: Five Elements Seal)** just in case Naruto reacted badly to the news of who his father was.

Said boy was incredibly confused. He wondered who his father was that would make him have such a reaction. Whatever it was, it was going to be life changing in the eyes of Naruto… that was for sure. Listening to the words of his sensei, Naruto closed his eyes and started counting to ten.

Jiraiya wasn't sure how he was going to handle this, for all of the confidence he had, this was one situation where he found himself lacking that confidence. "Naruto, I want you to know that both of your parents loved you from the bottom of their hearts and they were eagerly counting down the days until you were born."

The instant that Naruto heard this his eyes were filling up with tears as he couldn't have been any happier at the moment. For an orphaned child to hear that his parents loved him and hadn't done anything distasteful towards him was a major relief to the blonde haired boy. There had been many moments in his short life so far that Naruto had questioned whether or not his parents loved him.

After a while, his keen mind started to think through the way that his sensei spoke to him. "But…" The genin shinobi stated as he realised that there was more to it than what his sensei had just said. What Jiraiya-sensei had just done was usually to butter someone up in the hopes of softening a future blow.

Deciding to just get it out into the open, Jiraiya responded with one hand ready in case shit hit the proverbial fan. "Naruto, your father is none other than the Yondaime Hokage of Konoha, one Minato Namikaze."

The first thing that Naruto felt was a tightening in the heart. This was due to the multitude of stress that was circulating through his body right at that very moment. His heart rate was quickening rapidly and the Kyubi was doing its best to regulate the blood flow as best as it could. His breathing was becoming more and more laboured as time went on.

From the outside, Jiraiya could see that Naruto's body was shaking quite fast it was scaring the godfather. Judging by the look that he saw in the eyes of Naruto, Jiraiya could see that Naruto was in a lot of fear right at the moment. This was despite the fact that Naruto was completely fine and there was nothing that could possibly heart Naruto with him around.

Whilst not being anywhere near as adept as his former teammate was when it came to diagnosing injuries and other issues, the Toad Sannin knew what Naruto was going through right now. His blonde haired godson was having a panic attack.

"It's okay Naruto, there is nothing that is going to hurt you. I will protect you." As peacefully as he possibly could, Jiraiya placed both of his hands on either shoulder of Naruto and looked into his eyes. This was not working however as the blonde haired boy unconsciously ignored his godfather.

"Naruto, you need to calm down, try and take as many deep breaths as you can whilst counting to ten." From past experience due to having to deal with an inconsolable Tsunade at times, Jiraiya knew that the worst thing he could have possibly done was raise his voice. The added stress that would have caused Naruto to be under was only going to compound on his mental issues.

Thankfully for the godfather, Naruto was able to hear these words and tried his best to do what his sensei was telling him. Closing his eyes to help him calm his nerves, Naruto took a deep breath through his nostrils before exhaling through his mouth. Almost immediately, Naruto felt better about himself when he finished the breath. It was like a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. Naruto though was by no means in the clear as his heart rate was at an elevated level and there was still the panic running inside of his body.

The calming area that Jiraiya was providing with his chakra was something that Naruto had no idea the man was doing. If he did, he would have thanked his sensei the moment that he recovered from his little episode.

It took a while but in the end Naruto eventually managed to calm himself down as the realisation dawned on him that he was the son of the Yondaime Hokage. All of the things that Naruto learnt during the academy taught him that the man was someone who was innately kind and caring. Sealing a Bijuu into the stomach of your first born son was not something that that was either loving or nice. It was one of the harshest things that Naruto could ever think of someone doing to their only child.

There was only one word that was circulating through the mind of Naruto. "Why?"

Seeing the turmoil that Naruto was going through, Jiraiya knew that this question was going to come one day and that was why he had been preparing for that. "Naruto, I want you to know that both your father and mother loved you very much. The moment that they found out that Kushina was pregnant; they had the biggest smiles on their face that you could possibly imagine. Minato and Kushina were readily counting down the days that they could welcome you into their world.

What I am trying to say is that this was not something that your father would have done if there was another option available." Hearing this, it brought a smile to the face of Naruto. Despite him being very angry with his dad right now, it was nice to know that they still loved him no matter what. It was something that nobody other than an orphaned child at birth would understand.

This though did not truly answer his first question, Naruto wanted a direct answer to the major question that was running through his mind. "Sensei, why did he use me for a jinchuuriki? Why couldn't he have used someone else? Why would he do that to his own son?"

Knowing that this was coming, Jiraiya thought on how best to handle the situation. It was okay for a child to have these thoughts as it was a way with dealing stressful situations. "Naruto, what you don't know about jinchuuriki is that they either have to have sort of special disposition to handling demonic chakra or are very young. This is especially true for the stronger demons.

Could you honestly ask a family to give up a child to live through the life that you have had as a father when you are not willing to do the same thing with your own child?" As Jiraiya said this, the blonde haired boy stood stumped as he was making up his mind.

In the end though, the Uzumaki genin came to the conclusion that if he was in the same situation, he would have made the same choice. This was simply down to the fact that no, he couldn't take a child from another family when he had his own to use for the procedure. It was tough to listen to but Naruto knew that his father had made the correct decision. It brought a bittersweet smile to the Uzumaki heir's face.

Seeing the smile on the face of his godson, Jiraiya started talking. "Naruto, I have an S-ranked Secret comparable to your status as a jinchuuriki of the Kyubi no Kitsune. I am fairly confident that the Sandaime would not have wanted to tell you this until you made the rank of Jonin but since he is not around anymore, he can't enforce the ruling."

The blonde haired boy was hanging on with baited breath as he was waiting to hear what this massive secret was. Considering their last topics of conversation, this one was going to be about either one of his parents. Anything concerning his parents, Naruto felt that he deserved to know. It was yet another thing that was making Naruto's view on Hiruzen Sarutobi not as fond as what it once was.

"Naruto, you are not the first jinchuuriki of the Kyubi no Kitsune." Whilst this was definitely news to him, it was not really news that surprised him all that much. The snake summoner had a pretty keen mind and could assume that he was not the first person to have to deal with the Kyubi on a rather permanent basis.

"During the fight at the valley of the end between Madara Uchiha and Hashirama Senju, Madara Summoned the Kyubi alongside to fight. It was there that the wife of Hashirama, Mito Uzumaki used her clan's famous sealing techniques to seal the Kyubi inside of herself." Naruto had known this up until the point where Jiraiya-sensei mentioned the wife of the Shodaime Hokage Mito Uzumaki. All of his attention was focused onto that one little detail. It was nice to know that there were members of the Uzumaki clan who were not looked down upon as if they were gutter trash.

"As time went on, Mito Uzumaki weakened as old age did what it does to everyone. It was time that the Kyubi was transferred into a new host so that the beast wouldn't come out rampage throughout Konoha. That was when it was agreed upon between Uzushiogakure and Konohagakure that your mum was going to come to Konoha from her home to become the next jinchuuriki of the Kyubi no Kitsune. The attack on Uzushiogakure only sped up the process."

It seemed in the eyes of Kyubi jinchuuriki that today should be renamed to drop a whole load of bombshells onto Naruto day. One after another of huge revelations came to Naruto and he wondered why he was finding out these things only now. It would have been nice to have them spaced out between their reveals but Naruto just decided to power on through all of them.

Shock was coursing through his body as he found out that his mother had to go through the same struggles in life that he had to. Naruto would never wish onto even his worst enemy to have the Kyubi sealed into them. That only made it even harder for the Uzumaki genin harder when he found out this his mother had it just as bad.

Six months ago, the Naruto of that time would have raged about shouting how it wasn't fair that his mum had no choice in the decision. He would have been right. What the present Naruto knew though was that life wasn't fair at all. He was a prime example of this. It seemed that some people had more shit thrown on their plate than others. He and his mother both just seemed to get the Holy Grail when it came to fucked up childhoods.

Thankfully for Naruto, his sensei broke him out of his internal musings as he knew that had he been allowed to continue on that path, it would not have ended well at all. "After Kushina had the Kyubi sealed inside of her, she lived her life normally.

Naruto, if it makes you feel any better, few people knew that the Kyubi was sealed inside your mum. Even fewer hated your mum because of that because there had not any sightings of the beast to show just how powerful it is." Jiraiya said in an effort to help his godson through these emotional times.

It did help. Naruto was immensely thankful for the fact that his mum didn't have to go through the same hardships that he had to. The sigh of relief was pretty much customary for the blue eyed boy right about now.

"There is only one real weakness without any outside help to the seal holding the demon inside for a demon." Naruto was on the edge of his arse waiting to hear what this weakness was. It was obvious to the boy that this had been a contributing factor in the death of not only his mother but probably his father as well. Naruto also wanted to know if this was something that he was going to have to be worried about.

Jiraiya wasn't too sure how Naruto was going to take this. He knew that Naruto was becoming more and more of a person who would go down the route of angst to deal with his issues as each day went by. Hearing that he was part of the cause was not going to be productive at all.

"The only time the seal is weak due to natural causes is when a woman who is a jinchuuriki becomes pregnant." If the silver haired man planned to say anything more after that, then it would be null and void in the eyes of Naruto. The blonde haired boy was too busy thinking a self-destructive thought along the lines of him being born was the cause of his parent's deaths.

_Fuck! If only Kushina and Minato were here right now, then none of this would have ever happened. If there were any questions that Naruto needed talking about, then he could have gone to them instead of me. This isn't something that I am suited to. I truly wish I knew what happened that night._

"However, With Minato being the greatest seal master of his generation, there should have been no problem whatsoever with the seal." This was enough to pique Naruto's curiosity tried to find an explanation to everything going on inside of his head.

"This isn't something that is known to many people Naruto and you would definitely be the lowest ranked by far… but we believe that there was an attack on the night of your birth.

I am not sure what happened that night but the Sandaime Hokage and your father had taken drastic measures to ensure a safe birth for both you and your mum. A very powerful ninja knew what was happening that night and broke up the procedure. He managed to kidnap your mum away from your dad somehow and ripped the Kyubi right out of her stomach sending it to Konoha's doorstep." The relief spread through the approaching teenager very quickly as he hated to think that he was the cause of his mother and father's deaths. Naruto would much rather there may have been someone else that he could put the blame on.

The mind of Naruto started whirling though as he processed the fact that some ninja had broken in and kidnapped his mother despite the freaking Yondaime Hokage being around to watch over everything. The Konoha genin tried to think of a ninja who was able to do such a thing. It was to no surprise that Naruto could not come up with anyone to fit the bill.

Jiraiya wasn't really expecting Naruto to figure that one out. Both he and his sensei had been trying to figure the answer to that particular question for thirteen years and they had come up with nothing.

The blonde haired boy still had a lot going on in his mind as he tried to place together inside his mind what had happened that night.

"Thank you sensei for telling me all of this, you really don't know how much this means to me!" as Naruto was saying this, there was a tear that was coming down his cheek in happiness. He finally knew who his parents were. The best part though was finding out that they loved him and they didn't hate him like what a lot of the Konoha villagers had said to him.

"Naruto, there is no need to thank me for this, instead, you should probably be angry at me for not telling you this sooner. Believe me I would have if I could..." The silver haired Sannin lamented to himself as he wished that he could have been there more for his godson during his formative years.

This statement shocked the Uzumaki genin as he what to know exactly what his sensei meant by that. "What do you mean sensei! Why couldn't you tell me these things any earlier?" There was an evident frown on the face of Naruto as well as curiosity in those deep blue eyes of his.

Sighing, Jiraiya wondered to himself whether this was another thing that Naruto needed to hear right away. He was already dealing through enough stress at the moment with the latest revelations; it wouldn't do any good to further stress the boy. However, after seeing that Naruto had powered through what was said beforehand, the Toad Sannin felt confident enough to tell Naruto the next bit of information.

"Naruto, the Sandaime Hokage and I weren't always on the best of terms. There were quite a number of things that we disagreed upon but none of them were as harshly discussed than when you were the topic."

"I initially wanted to look after you and let you grow up outside of Konoha. I wanted you to not have to deal with the backlash following the attack from the Kyubi.

Hiruzen however wanted you to stay in Konoha. The reason was because of the fact that you hold the Kyubi inside of you. If there was anyone that tried to attack Konoha during our moment of weakness, we could still use the threat of having the Kyubi jinchuuriki in our ranks. If it came to the worst, Konoha could always release the Kyubi from the seal on another nation before sealing it back up." Jiraiya stated to Naruto who just hung his head as he thought through what he had just heard.

Like hearing about his mum being the Kyubi's jinchuuriki, Naruto didn't like the fact that the Sandaime wanted to keep him inside Konoha purely for the demon sealed inside of him. However, Naruto knew that life was not fair. The Hokage had to make the decisions that he felt that would best serve the village. If he had to sacrifice one person to ensure the prosperity for the others, then it was something would have to be done. The blonde haired gaki just happened to be the person who was always in line of the incoming shit storm.

"There was even a point where I was contemplating becoming a missing ninja and kidnapping you so that I could raise you outside of Konoha. I knew what was going to happen and I didn't want you to have to go through that with no one there to look after you."

Naruto was touched. Nobody that he knew was willing to go that far for him that they would readily betray their nation just so that they could look after him. It was something that Naruto was not really sure how to respond to as he had never been in a situation like this before, nothing even remotely close. In the end, the Kyubi jinchuuriki settled on smiling shyly.

"In the end though, it wouldn't have been fair on you if I did that as Hiruzen would have sent hunter ninjas after both you and me trying to get you back to Konoha. A life on the run with no stability would have been one that would put you in unnecessary danger. That was not something that I was willing to do. At least inside Konoha you were physically safe."

Outbursts of emotion were nowhere near as frequent now that Naruto was learning to control his emotions but now felt like as good a time as ever to let one out. "Well I might have been physically safe but do you know how hard it was to grow up as an orphan not knowing who your parents were! Do you know how hard it was to try and learn everything yourself when no one is willing to teach you anything? It's a major struggle!"

Still in the calm as ever voice, Jiraiya replied to his godson. "Yes Naruto, I do. I am an orphan at birth just like you. I know what it's like to be wondering where you came from and whether or not your parents loved you. I know what it's like to deal with the hardships that come with growing up all alone."

Hearing his sensei say what he had just said made Naruto feel like a piece of shit. He never liked being reminded of his upbringing and he knew that other people hated it just as much as he did. "I'm sorry sensei, I didn't know that, I shouldn't have said that. Will you forgive me?"

It was clear to Jiraiya that with the way that Naruto replied to him, the silver haired man could see that despite the tough façade that carried, there were still a lot of unresolved issues. One of them being that Naruto had quite a big abandonment complex that stemmed from his childhood. That was something that was going to be addressed soon if Jiraiya had anything to do about it.

It certainly helped that being a spymaster; the Sannin was able to read people like a book.

"Naruto, you don't have to worry, you're not in trouble. You have had a rough childhood and for a lot of kids, lashing out at those you care about is a coping mechanism." Hearing that it was okay for him to do what he had just done, Naruto was comforted by that he had not lost yet another person. He didn't take it well when he found out that Ayame and Teuchi Ichiraku had left him. He didn't want another person he was close to him to leave him as well.

"Thanks Jiraiya-sensei."

It was nice to hear things like this and Jiraiya responded with a smile on his face. "Just make sure that you don't use that as an excuse to justify unjust things that you do. Don't make this something that you fall back on. The pity party only works so far and then everyone will leave you thinking that you are a whiny little bitch."

Taking the advice to heart, Naruto nodded committed that information to memory. It was true; he didn't want to be like that little bitch Squeak at the academy. After the thirteen or fourteen times he got teased, the piece of shit dropped out of the academy. No, he definitely didn't want to be like Squeak Scolari.

Seeing the internal musings of Naruto with the smile that was on his face, it made Jiraiya realise that his godson was taking things rather well, all things considered. It was at that moment that Jiraiya decided that he would go for broke and reveal one more thing and hope that Naruto wouldn't hate him for it.

"Now Naruto, there is one more thing that I want to tell you. It's something that I hope that you won't hate me for…" Despite all of his bravado and confidence, this was something that Jiraiya was extremely nervous about revealing. He didn't want to face the possible reality of his godson hating him and not wanting the two of them to hang out.

After hearing that his sensei had one final thing that he wanted to get off of his chest, Naruto waited on with baited breath to hear what it was. "Naruto, when you were still inside your mum's stomach, both your mum and dad were reading the first ever book that I ever wrote." This statement immediately sent Naruto on edge as he hated to think that his parents were perverts that would read the Icha Icha trash.

Knowing what thoughts were running through the mind of Naruto right at that stage, the silver haired man decided to nip it in the bud as he wanted Naruto to have only the best of impressions for his parents. There was a melancholic laugh on the behalf of Jiraiya as he spoke. "Ironically enough, that was the only book that I wrote where it wasn't centred on porn."

The relieved sigh was one that escaped the lips of Naruto. Jiraiya was torn however. On one hand he wanted nothing more to convert Naruto into the next super pervert but on the other, he wanted to guide Naruto into being a person that both of his parents would respect. If Naruto did follow the path of the pervert, then Kushina would definitely grab his nuts and attack them with a cheese grater. That was certainly not something that he wished to experience any time soon.

"If I remember correctly, the main character in that story acted in the exact same way as you did say six months ago… back to the story though, the main character of that book that I wrote was none other than Naruto."

Shock was running through Naruto as he was excited to find out where his name came from. He had been teased at the academy on occasions for his name meaning fishcake. The approaching teenager preferred to use the other meaning of his name which was Maelstrom.

"It was after reading the book that your parents decided to give you that name after the main character as they wanted to instil the same values into you which this character had." It was a hope that with the way that he said it, it would get his godson interested in reading books. There were far too many children who refused to read and it inhibited their learning potential. Jiraiya did not want Naruto to fall down that path. Jiraiya did not want Naruto to fall down the same path that he did at that age.

"Finally Naruto, in honour of your parents choosing your name from one of my books, Minato and Kushina both decided that they would give me the honour of being your godfather."

Honestly, hearing that made Naruto have no idea how he was supposed to react. Here in front of him was the person who was supposed to be his godfather and as far as he could tell, Jiraiya had only waltzed into his life about a week and a half ago.

On the other hand though, this was the very same person who had told him who both of his parents were when no one else was willing to tell him who either one was. That alone was something that was worth its weight in gold. Hearing that his family loved him had made the boy instantly more at a peace with himself as one of his massive insecurities had vanished into thin air.

Normally when one was comparing the pros and the cons, there would be one side which would win. In the mind of Naruto though, the Kyubi jinchuuriki couldn't really see which side was winning this war.

"You haven't been around in my life apart from joining into it two weeks ago." The moment that the silver haired Sannin heard this, he presumed that he knew what was coming. He was going to hear that his godson didn't want to associate with him anymore. It was something that he was bitterly disappointed about but it was something that he would have to live by no matter the emotional pain that it caused. The Toad summoner knew that Naruto had all the rights in the world to not want to hang out with him after shirking on his duties as a godfather.

Before the thoughts of the middle aged man could get any more depressing, he was interrupted by Naruto. "On the other hand though, you were the only person who was willing to tell me who my parents were even when other people lied to me." The smile that lighted up the face of Jiraiya was one that Naruto couldn't help but join in as well. His godfather just had an incredibly infectious personality and upbeat attitude about life.

"I'm going to give you until the end of the mission before I decide on whether or not I want to you to be in my life." That was the best that Jiraiya could honesty hope for. The pessimistic side inside of him thought that he didn't even deserve the chance to associate with his godson.

"Alright then! I guess that I should start teaching about how to be the best damn seal master there ever was hadn't I?" Jiraiya said in an upbeat tone of voice as he was happy with the chance that he had to make things right. The same emotions were playing along the face of Naruto as he finally had a chance to do something that both of his parents were famous for. In his eyes, it was as if it was a rite of passage that he was determined to pass with flying colours.

"Now Naruto, I need you to create 20 clones so you can train with them. Surely someone as well versed with the jutsu would know all of its advantages."

"I shouldn't be doing that. Manda-sama told me not to do it as it would risk the Kyubi coming out of the seal. He said that when I was training I had heightened aggression and was prone to bouts of rage." If there was one thing that Naruto was self-conscious about, it was anything to do with the giant fox demon that was sealed into his stomach by his father.

Surprised that Manda would be concerned about something like that, Jiraiya was starting to think that the giant snake wasn't as bad as what his initial idea of the snake was. _It was probably just him always being around Orochimaru for all those years that made me think of him as some twisted animal._ _Maybe I should start reforming my opinion about Manda, I know I am going to be seeing him just as often when me and Orochimaru still used to be on the same team._

"Naruto, since your mother was the previous jinchuuriki, I spent a lot of time around her when she was near Minato. I have also studied the seal that your dad put on you so I know how far we can safely push the limits and get the most out of your training." The smirk that was on the face of his godson was one that Jiraiya had seen when Kushina had decided on doing something to Minato to get revenge at him for something. It was nostalgic for sure.

As for Naruto, he was just too busy thinking about all of the training that could be accomplished with this method of training reopened. It would certainly increase the rate at which his shinobi skills would improve.

"So Naruto, how about you make twenty clones to practice your one handed hand seals and we will get started on the Fuuinjutsu." Nodding as he was eager to get started, Naruto produced the twenty clones. The boy then proceeded to ask why wouldn't it be better to split the clones for the training so that they could focus equally on fuinjutsu and one handed jutsus.

"Well gaki, with the way that the memory transfer works is that you process the memories from your original body at a much higher priority compared to the ones coming from the clones. There is much more of a chance to remember the information correctly if we stick to just you learning Fuuinjutsu. Using the shadow clones for training is suited for things that don't revolve around high amounts of information. They are more revolved around practising on getting better at something rather than learning something new altogether."

Once lecture mode had ended, Quality bonding time was spent between the godfather and godson as Jiraiya started teaching Naruto all there is to learn about the art his mum and dad perfected.

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><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

**I lied! My motivation for this story is getting higher and higher as each new chapter is started because soon the story will start becoming more of an AU rather than following canon with a different Naruto.**

**If anyone gets the reference I put in this chapter then you have watched one of the top five cult films of all time. You deserve 10 internetz.**

**On a more serious note, concerning the recent updates in the policy on this site, I won't be rearranging my stories to fit into their terms of use. If they get removed then so be it but I won't be compromising what my plan for the story is. Expect more violence, sex, swearing and other adult related material.**


	26. Whilst she does Tae-bo

**Author's Note: Sorry for this story having not being updated in such a long time. A minor case of writer's block is the only inexcusable excuse I can provide for this taking so long. Also, my muse for writing fan fiction is slowly deteriorating. This is due to the threat of my stories being taken down if I write them the way that I had originally planned to.**

**As a note, I will not be going back and editing all of my chapters so to conform to these new rules. If they get taken down, then so be it. That will unfortanately be the end of the my fanfiction career.**

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><p>Naruto was positively beaming. He had finally found a shinobi art that he was above average at. Scratch that, Naruto knew that he was damned good at the art of Fuuinjutsu. The blonde haired boy was judging this on by the reactions that he was getting from his godfather.<p>

Jiraiya was rightfully impressed and proud of what he had seen Naruto accomplish in such a short space of time. Not only did the gaki get the theory down for sealing which was a surprise, Naruto also had the practical knowhow to implement theory into results.

Somehow the theory that went behind the scenes into Fuuinjutsu all made sense. The Uzumaki child had obviously inherited the talent that had made his clan so famous over the years. Naruto was reading over the formulas which combined with brush strokes allowed to make a basic storage scroll on the first day of training!

Watching as Naruto was powering through the bookwork that was neccassary, the silver haired man, Jiraiya couldn't help but wonder what Naruto would be like with a couple of solid years training in seals. Not even Minato was as good as Naruto was in terms of picking the type of jutsu up like his son was. If Minato could create the Fuuinjutsu: Hiraishin no Jutsu (Sealing Arts: Flying Thunder God Jutsu), what would Naruto's potential allow him to create? It was a question that only time could answer.

Under his careful supervision, Jiraiya instructed Naruto on how to correctly go through the procedure of writing up a seal. First there were the brushstrokes that had to be done almost perfectly. Luckily this was something that Naruto had little trouble with thanks to the training he put on himself before he was inducted into the snake clan.

The next part Naruto in his opinion so far was the hardest thing about sealing. That was the fact that you had to have quite good chakra control to be able to effectively use seals. It wasn't so much the incredible precision that was needed to be a medic ninja but it was a different kind of chakra control that Naruto was not use to yet.

It made the boy's respect for his mum, dad, godfather and any other good sealists' go that extra bit higher.

Despite the way that Naruto was blitzing through the theoretical work, the toad Sannin did not expect for the blonde haired boy to make a seal correctly the first time. He was right as he watched as Naruto put the finishing touches on the seal and channelled chakra into it. The parchment rolled up into a perfect sealing scroll and Naruto thought that he had done it successfully. When he tried to test it out by sealing a leaf into it, the Kyubi jinchuuriki realised that he couldn't unseal the leaf.

This was only a problem that would last a short while though as Naruto managed to figure out what the issue was all by himself and then go about fixing it.

Before Naruto could further his knowledge in Fuuinjutsu, Jiraiya stopped him from any more studying as he wanted to make sure that Naruto was prepared for the influx of memories. He didn't care that Naruto had used the jutsu before for training, if Naruto continued to do it that way, he would no doubt develop some mental issues and that was something that no one wanted for the Kyubi jinchuuriki. It was better to be careful than throw caution out the window.

Naruto was making significant progress in the one handed seals department as he now that he had gotten the hand seals down, the blonde haired boy was practicing chakra manipulation that he normally did with two hands one handed. He was pretty much a third of the way to where his sensei said he needed to be before he could move on to the next step.

When the clones dispersed and the information came back to him, Naruto felt dizzy for a while as he filtered all of the knowledge that the clones had. It only took five minutes but Naruto was as good as ever once it was done. To end the day, Naruto practiced his taijutsu on his sensei and he got absolutely schooled. It was to no surprise that Naruto did not win. He was a genin going up against an elite Jonin.

Waking up the next morning, Naruto excited to learn more about sealing pulled out one of the books that his godfather gave to him to read. Since it was on the bedside table, the genin did not have to even get out of bed. Naruto didn't even realise that the sun was still not fully up. It was safe to say that Naruto was a morning person.

The silver haired man who was paying for his accommodation was not however. Naruto spent two hours reading the book on sealing as well as trying to figure out the questions that were in a sense homework. He was so engrossed in his work that the blonde haired boy didn't even hear his sensei getting up.

His nose however was a different story. That sensory gland was on a warpath ever since his stomach had decided that it needed sustenance. Putting his book away, Naruto exited the room and went to the main room of the apartment he was staying in. Naruto loved the fact that his sensei was loaded with money. It sure beat having to rough it out in sleeping bags.

As the blonde haired boy was entering the main living area, Naruto noticed that there was a clone of his sensei. Judging by the smell that was coming from the kitchen, there was going to be a lot for him to eat.

The blonde haired boy was right! There was tons of food there! Sensing the presence of his godson, Jiraiya spoke up. "You're probably going to hate me for this…but you are not going to like breakfast." There was a guarded expression on the face of Naruto as he wondered what it was that he was going to be eating. There was the fact that he could attempt to make something himself but that wasn't something that he was willing to risk.

"I am going to make you eat so much that you feel sick!" This didn't make Naruto feel any safer. In fact it made the feeling of unease inside his stomach even worse.

"Thanks to the fact that you got yourself crippled a little while ago, It's up the great Jiraiya-sama to get you back into fighting shape." _God knows I have to with the Akatsuki being out there…_

"You are going to be having heaps and heaps of protein and carbohydrates. Once that is done and your stomach has settled, get ready for the workout of a lifetime!" Whilst Naruto was someone who loved to exercise, hearing the plan couldn't help but fill the blonde haired boy up with trepidation. At least it did get rid of the nervousness that Naruto had about breakfast.

By the time that half an hour had passed, Naruto had had one chicken breast, 6 egg whites, 2 bowls of oatmeal, and a bowl full of cottage cheese. The genin ninja was absolutely stuffed to the brim with food. In a bittersweet fashion, thanks to the fact that Naruto had a rather shitty upbringing when it came to what he ate for meals, Naruto didn't have as much of a reaction to the food as Jiraiya first thought.

Just when Naruto thought that it couldn't get any worse, the snake summoning ninja was about to be proved wrong yet again. There in front of him was his sensei who had three cups in his hands and walking over to him. "Oi gaki! Take two of these." Nodding as his sensei hadn't led him down the wrong direction beforehand, Naruto got his hands on the two drinks Jiraiya was expecting him to drink.

"These are what I call protein shakes and what you are going to call the shittiest drinks in all of mankind! When you are old enough for me to get you drunk, I will let you taste beer. Even after you've puked three times from having beer, you will still think that protein shakes taste worse. So gaki, you now have to drink two of those right now."

Normally this would be way too much minerals and vitamins to be shoving into one's body but the toad Sannin was confident that it would all pay off soon enough. This was because Jiraiya was confident that the Kyubi's healing prowess would kick in and make the most of the nutrient coming inside Naruto's body.

It was essentially a bloodline in the way that it provided so many benefits for the host. Many people would overlook having the healing ability which was only good for after combat. Many people were stupid.

To have your wounds heal up during a battle was very good as it would no doubt provide a morale drop in the enemy to see that their work was inefficient. Another thing that was great about it when in the middle of the fight was that it would make you less of a liability as time went on. If you had say a whole in your leg that prevented you from walking, then it would be less of an amount of time before you could go back on the offensive.

The best part about the healing ability in the eyes of Jiraiya was the simple fact of how this could be applied to training. It was a gold mine in terms of not having to wait anywhere up to four days for your body to heal after a rigorous training session! This combining with the fact that it was both easier and quicker to build muscle meant that you were a much better shinobi in a smaller space of time. Speed was one of the most important factors in a shinobi fight after all.

What Jiraiya was doing right now was just making the most of the available tools in front of him. Turning his attention back to Naruto, Jiraiya spoke up. "Now midget, if you might want to skull it. Prolonging the bad taste will only make it worse."

Giving Jiraiya-sensei a rude stare when the man called him a midget, Naruto accepted the man's words. Closing his nose, Naruto opened the hatch and poured the drink of Satan down his throat.

10 seconds later and one could see the Kyubi jinchuuriki hunched over trying not to have another visit with the protein shake as well as all of the other stuff that he had had to eat that morning. Thankfully for Jiraiya's wallet, Naruto had the presence of mind to put the lid back on the cup instead of just chucking it on the floor.

"What the hell is that supposed to taste like!? It tastes like a dried up hooker's vagina!" the moment that those words came out of the mouth of he couldn't help but laugh hysterically. _If only I had given him the fish flavoured one… _was the single thought going through the mind of Jiraiya at the time. It was great to heart something like that come from Naruto.

Minato had always been the quiet one and would disapprove of speaking like that. Kushina was similar in that she would disapprove of the type of talk that Naruto was using. Where the red haired woman differed was in that she was a woman and talking about sex in such a vulgar manner was something that she did not like. If it was say with her husband between the two of them, then she was all for it. Out in the open… not so much.

Hopefully with Naruto saying stuff like this then it would allow him to say a few things that he wouldn't have said around either Minato or Kushina.

On the behalf of Naruto though, the teenager had a blush on his face as he had said something that he knew that he probably shouldn't have. There really only two concerns in his mind was that whether or not his mum and dad would approve of what he was saying.

The realist inside of Naruto knew the answer no matter how much he wanted to deny it that his parents wouldn't be proud of the way how he just spoke. It brought the happy mode inside of Naruto down quite a lot knowing that his parents would be disappointed in him right now.

The other reason as to why Naruto was sad was because he knew that what he had said was unbecoming of the snake clan. There was no doubt inside the mind of Naruto that Manda would be looking down on him right now if he was in the room.

The laughter coming from his sensei did help out the situation a bit. It made Naruto feel more like that he belonged. It was ebbing the feeling of being the outcast more and more out of him as time went on. The blonde haired boy only hoped that he could make some more friends his own age and truly feel like he had a place in this world.

After recovering from Naruto's joke, Jiraiya spoke up. "Gaki that is comedy gold! Hahaha whenever something tastes bad, it's now going to be referred to as a dried up hooker's vagina hahaha!"

It was then that Jiraiya sobered up just that little bit more, he knew that he had to say something that he wished either Kushina or Minato was around to say. "Naruto, I hope that you don't speak like that often. Even if none of the words that you used were swear words, what you said was still something that isn't acceptable. Don't make me have to resort to any form of punishment. I won't prevent you from swearing or saying stuff like that if the situation deserves it, just don't do it any more than absolutely neccassary."

The blonde haired boy didn't even bother trying to refute what his godfather had just said. Right now, the threat of punishment was the closest thing that he had had when it came to feeling of being grounded. Since it couldn't have come from his parents, it came from his godfather and that was something that Naruto didn't mind one bit. The emotion behind it was that of a parent and Naruto as time went on was starting to feel what it is like to be a part of a family.

As long as Jiraiya-sensei personality and the way he acted stayed the same, then he would be more than willing to have the man in his life. If it ever came down to it, Naruto was pretty confident that he would beg to keep the man's presence in his life.

With those thoughts as his motivation, Naruto opened the lid on the other protein shake and drank it as quick as possible. There was not only training that needed to be done but there was also a very important mission that they needed to complete for more than one reason. Rock Lee was still in the hospital with there being no one able to heal his injuries. Tsunade had to come back as that boy didn't deserve for his shinobi career to be ended so soon.

As Naruto was walking out to where he was going to be training, the last thing that the boy heard was his sensei's voice. "How would know what that tastes like gaki? Have you already lost v-plates?" All Naruto could do was blush and walk away slightly faster. He didn't want to give Jiraiya that information as he knew that it was going to be a goldmine of a teasing opportunity for his godfather. "C'mon Gaki, Tell me! Have you already done the nasty? I'll be so proud of you if you have." The Uzumaki genin didn't answer, instead he just continued on walking. The blush never receded on his face, it only intensified.

**3 hours later**

Both Naruto and Jiraiya were on their way to the town known as Tanzaku-Gai. That was the place where Jiraiya had informed Naruto of Tsunade's last spotted location being. The determination that was on the face of Naruto only intensified as he heard this. There was still a fair distance that he and his sensei were going to have to travel before they stopped for the night.

Naruto Uzumaki was going to need all of that determination because his body at the moment was struggling to keep moving. There was a mixture of feelings running through Naruto right now. On one hand he felt depressed because he was a cripple thanks to all of the training he had undergone today with his sensei. On the other hand, Naruto had the biggest rush of testosterone and endorphins running through his body that he thought that he could take on 50,000 Kyubi's as a warm up.

The first thing that Jiraiya-sensei had him do was get him to start with running around the premade track. It wasn't bag for the fact that this was merely a warm up. Naruto didn't just how much of a precursor this was when he was told to do 20 laps. That didn't normally sound like a warm up for such a long distance per lap.

It was then that the real training begun. Putting on the weighted bands that his sensei had made, Naruto got into the push up position. 50 push ups were what was required of him and Naruto got stuck into it from there. As he was doing this, Jiraiya casually informed him that he was carrying 5kg on both his forearms and his biceps / triceps. This wasn't so bad for Naruto when he was doing the down motion for the push up but it certainly made it whole lot harder on the way back up.

For his waist, Jiraiya told Naruto that he had put this specific weighted band up a whole 20kg. It was a bit of a discomfort at the time but Naruto had no idea just how much it would seem to be later on.

Once his push ups were done, Naruto got his next order. That was to grab the two weighted chunks of earth that his sensei had created. Jiraiya stated that they were both around about 10kg each. Curious as to what exercise he was going to do next, Naruto looked on in anticipation at his sensei.

All the man said was to stretch his arms out as far as possible and lift them sideways to a horizontal position. Like the weight around his stomach, Naruto grossly underestimated just how hard this exercise was going to be. The burn that he was feeling from the first repetition made Naruto cringe as he found a new muscle group that he had never used before it seemed. To add insult into injury, it was right at this time that Jiraiya said that he was going to have to 49 more of those.

The moment that the exercise was done, Naruto literally dropped both of the makeshift dumbbells to the ground and took in a deep breath of fresh air. If it wasn't for the fact he could deny it with his very own eyes, Naruto would have easily said that his arms were on fire they were hurting that damned much!

Under the guidance of one of the strongest shinobi that Konoha had produced, Naruto used the bar that his sensei had made moments prior. "It's chin up time now! Spread your arms out and bend at the elbows. I'm demanding that you do 75 of these." The only of discontentment that Naruto showed was a grunt. With that out of the way, Naruto got on with what he had to do to get stronger.

Once these were out of the way, Naruto found out that there were a whole lot more exercises on the way. Bicep curls, skull crushers and a variety of other exercises were all in store for Naruto. Just when the boy thought that it couldn't get any worse, Naruto got the information that was like a kunai through the chest.

Jiraiya-sensei in his infinite wisdom said that he had to do everything that he had previously done once more. This was the first time that Jiraiya had heard his godson swear and he couldn't help but laugh. He had been through the same when he was training Minato and the trio from Amegakure. It had been so long ago that Jiraiya forgot how fun it was to train someone physically.

That was only concerning his arms, the next thing that came in the rigorous three hour training session was his chest, back and abs. Naruto this time around had to do a hefty routine involving the plank position, sit ups, v ups and crunches.

Naruto didn't even want to think about the squats, lunges and different variations of leg raises that he had to go through. The thing that he hated the most though was when Jiraiya decided that he was going to sit on top of Naruto's shoulders and still expect the boy to do 50 squats. The Toad Sannin was even going so far as to prevent Naruto any leeway because after all, form was more important than the added weight. The blonde haired boy was still expected to perform fifty arse to ankle squats

It was easy to see why Naruto was moving as if he was an 80 year old civilian man. This didn't make it any less of an achievement for the boy.

Jiraiya could honestly say that he had never been prouder of one of his students on the first day of physical training. None had been set out such a regime and none had come even close to matching what Naruto had just achieved. His godson was definitely deserving of a rest day and big sleep in. With the gains that this day would produce, Jiraiya was giddy to see just how much Naruto would be in say six months in the future. Jiraiya knew that Naruto was going to have to improve a whole lot more with the Akatsuki being out there targeting the Bijuus'.

All that was left was for the two of them was to find a place to stay and then Naruto would demand the biggest meal of his life. Frankly the toad Sannin couldn't be bothered cooking and he would rather take a hit to the wallet than having to spend so much time around a kitchen stove. That was Tsunade's job dammit. Actually, scratch that. The silver haired man knew that he wouldn't touch anything that Tsunade made with a ten foot pole unless he wanted to die of MSG food poisoning.

Once the hotel was booked for the night, Naruto and Jiraiya both headed into the market district of the little town they were staying in for the night. Since Jiraiya was the one who had the money, he was the one making the decisions. Naruto honestly didn't care one bit. He knew that his sensei wouldn't actively choose a shit looking place so he wasn't going to get something bad to eat.

When they stopped off at a ramen restraint, Naruto couldn't help but have some unease inside of him. The last time that he went to a ramen restaurant, he found out things that he never wanted to hear. It was nothing about this particular place, it was just that his view on the food had changed due to personal experiences.

Not knowing why Naruto had such a look on his face, Jiraiya decide that Naruto might be curious for some more information about his parents. "You know Naruto, both of your parents liked ramen, more so your mother than your father as she absolutely loved the dish. Kushina would literally drag Minato to the closet ramen shop that she could find. There was generally one place that she could go to, it was something like Ichiraku's or something I'm pretty sure. According to Kushina, they had the best food in the world and no one could dispute that fact."

What Jiraiya didn't know was that Naruto already knew about the place. That was why Naruto went wide eyed as he couldn't help but laugh in the irony that when he was younger, he also felt that the place served the best food in the whole entire world.

It was nice to know in the eyes of Naruto what types of foods that his parents liked. Hopefully he could try them in the near future and see if he liked them just as much!

The time that Naruto and Jiraiya spent together at the ramen house was an experience that the boy wouldn't be forgetting any time soon. There was a smile on the boy's face that stayed on there for the entire time that they spent having dinner. It made Naruto forget about the struggles that he had to deal with at Konoha. It was one of the first times in a long time that Naruto could feel like an actual kid and not either a jinchuuriki or a child solider of war.

**The next day**

Thanks to the fact that today was a rest day in terms of physical work, Naruto and Jiraiya decided that today was going to be the first day that they were serious in completing their mission. That mission was to bring Tsunade of the Densetsu no Sanin back to Konoha so that she could become the Godaime Hokage.

Naruto was still feeling the effects of the day before but he was not complaining one bit. Like his sensei said, if you don't feel the burn then you know that you haven't trained hard enough to improve. It's the feeling of the burn that makes all of the training worth it knowing that you could move on to bigger and better things in the future. It was the safety in knowing that you would be stronger for it allowing you to protect all those you hold dear to yourself.

Running along the ground and jumping into the trees whenever he an opportunity, Naruto and Jiraiya were making great ground on the location where Tsunade was last seen.

**With Tsunade**

Walking out of the place with a massive smile on her face, Shizune couldn't help but gape at the money that her sensei had just won! Normally it was the other way round. Normally Tsunade would lose so much money that the two would have to run away from the scene of the crime with little dignity.

This time round it was different. It was one of the first times in a long time that Shizune couldn't remember coming out on the winning side of her sensei's horrible luck. The blonde haired buxom woman however was feeling none of the same feelings that Shizune was. She knew from past experience that whenever she won something, it generally meant that something bad was going to happen to the people that she cared about.

Considering the fact that the only people that she cared about near her were Shizune and her pet pig Ton ton, it meant that one of those two were in the firing line. Tsunade definitely didn't want anything to happen to either one of them. It was at this moment that the lady visited the shinobi side of her brain which she had forsaken a long time ago. "Shizune! I have a very and feeling about this place. Let's get outta here as soon as possible."

Not seeing the same amount of danger that her master saw, Shizune was wondering why they had to move. "Tsunade-sama, this is a very beautiful place, why do we have to leave? We should explore the castle some more."

Deciding that such a thing couldn't hurt that much, Tsunade decided that the two of them would go have a look at Otafaku-Gai's monument. Little did they know what was waiting for them at their destination.

Arriving at the pride and Joy of the town, even more so than the casinos and brothels, Shizune couldn't help but marvel at the sight in front of her. It was arguably the biggest castle that she had ever seen. For Tsunade However, it wasn't that much of a wonder in her eyes. She had seen the castle that the Fire Daimyo lived in and this castle paled in comparison.

"Ahh! Tanzaku castle must have a fabulous view from the top looking down at the ground. I guess that is why it's called the treasure of the arts!" the smile that was on Shizune's face was one that didn't seem to be going any time soon.

The Slug Sannin still had the feelings of unease running through her and they only seemed to increase when she looked at the castle in front of her. "Don't waste any more time! I've let you see the castle and now we must get out of here as soon as possible." Tsunade said and she hoped that she didn't have to force Shizune to move.

"Awww! Can't we stay a bit longer? I just want to get up to the top and see the view from up there. The great thing is that it is free!" Before Tsunade could even start moving her lips in a response, there was a massive explosion that came from the castle. The massive bang signified the implosion of the castle and no doubt killed a lot of people inside the structure.

Wide eyed expressions were mirrored on the faces of both medics as they wondered what the hell had caused such a thing. They did not have to wait long at all as Tsunade saw a familiar face. That was the face of Orochimaru as he was riding one of his snake summons. Narrowing her eyes to the highest degree, Tsunade waited in anticipation as she wanted to know what her former teammate's purpose was.

The blonde haired woman could see the patented gaze of her former teammate directly on her. Ever since she had heard that he had been caught for doing inhumane things, Tsunade knew that the man in front of her was not one that she could trust, not even in the slightest.

"I have a little favour that I ask from you." The black haired man stated as he started off the first conversation in a long time between the two. As this was happening the medical mind behind the world's greatest healer was going a mile a minute trying to diagnose the symptoms of Orochimaru. _Erratic heartbeat, face looking extremely pale even for his standards and seems to have a high fever. He must have had a long period of exhaustion_. It was at this point that Tsunade had a look at both of Orochimaru's arms. The damage that she could see was unlike any that she had seen before. She could only wonder what in the blue blazes had happened to her former teammate to sustain injuries of those kinds.

Seeing the gaze that Tsunade had, Kabuto decided to enter himself into the fray. "Tsunade-sama, I assume that you've already figured it out just by looking at Orochimaru-sama…"

Before the bespectacled man could continue speaking, Tsunade instantly cut him off knowing where his train of speech was leading off to. "Hey, you can go and find someone else to do that. I quit being a doctor a long time ago."

With a grave look on his face, Kabuto showed no sign of irritation when Tsunade cut him off. Instead he started speaking once more. "Unfortunately Tsunade-sama, we can't do that. This wound you see, no one else can cure it.

You, Tsunade-sama, one of the Densetsu no Sannin and a medical specialist, you alone can cure it!" The devotion that Kabuto showed for seeing his master healed was easy for Tsunade to see.

Curious as to what had possibly caused the injuries to Orochimaru; Tsunade aimed her next question directly at the Snake Sannin. "That wound on both of your arms is not an ordinary wound. What have you done to get that?" The question was more of a rhetorical one in the eyes of Tsunade. The lady was convinced that she didn't want to know what it was that Orochimaru had done.

A quiet, sinister laugh was what followed next before the soft spoken voice of Orochimaru. "This was just a little moment left over from when I killed sensei!"

The shock and disbelief was written over the faces of both Shizune and Tsunade. There was nothing that either one of them could have done to hide the emotions that they were currently going through at the moment. Tsunade for her part couldn't believe what she had just heard. From what she could remember, Hiruzen-sense on occasions treated Orochimaru better than he did his own son Asune or something. What could have possibly have made Orochimaru want to kill him so bad? _I can't believe that you have lowered yourself so much over the years. You're despicable!_

Seeing the look in the eyes of Tsunade, the Snake Summoner spoke. "Heh Tsunade-chan, don't make a scary face like that. Something with form is destined to crumble. The same thing can be applied to humans. After all, you of this to don't you Tsunade-chan since you lost the two people you loved the most didn't you?"

The moment that those two were even referenced in the presence of Tsunade made the woman decide in her mind about Orochimaru's treatment. She was not going heal him out of principle. No one ever brought up those two in her presence unless she was the first person to do it!

The sinister look in the eyes of Orochimaru compounded onto the next thing that he said. "Ahhh, those were certainly cruel ways to die weren't they?" that was the final nail in the coffin of Shizune's temper as she had heard enough from the man. Not only was this because one of the people that Orochimaru was talking about her uncle but also because of the fact that Orochimaru was Nawaki's Jonin instructor.

Jumping into action, Shizune rolled up the sleeve on her right arm and this revealed that she had a senbon launcher set up on it. Using the weapon with ease, the medical ninja fired off the needles of death into the path of Orochimaru and Kabuto.

Thanks to the fast reflexes of Kabuto, none of these metallic instruments of death reached the black haired man. As he was holding the senbon in his hand, Kabuto noticed that there was a purple resent coming off of the blades that he could easily associate being poison.

"Calm down Shizune!" Tsunade ordered as she surveyed what had just taken place. "Orochimaru, you haven't changed one bit have you? You know who I am so don't kid around with me!" the closed eyed smile was one that promised Orochimaru death if he said the wrong thing. This was evident as Tsunade slammed her hand on the wall behind her displaying her super human strength.

_It's no wonder that she is still single _was the only thing that was running through the mind of Kabuto. The silver haired boy could readily admit to being apprehensive after having just seen that display from the medical ninja. "We're not here to fight. We came here so that we could negotiate." Kabuto said as there were more important matters to think about other than Tsunade's lack of a Romantic life.

Not interested in whatever deal it was that Orochimaru and his lackey were willing to offer, Tsunade spoke up intending to make her point clear once again. "I said it once before and I will say it again. Get out of my sight!"

Not showing any fear in the face of adversity, the glasses wearing shinobi continued to speak with the woman who could crush someone's skull with a finger flick. "You're the only person who can cure Orochimaru-sama's arm. We're not saying that it will be a one way bargain. How about we make a deal?:

"I'll count to five. Get out of here or else."

The tension that was in the air was so thick that a pin could have dropped and sounded like an earthquake right at that time. In reality, only a few seconds had passed but to those four ninjas in a standoff, it felt like an eternity. The silence was broken when the man who had been credited as a prodigal genius when he was a child entered the vernal fray once more.

"I can revive your brother and the man you love with the forbidden jutsu that I have developed." The bold proclamation coming from Orochimaru was one that rooted Tsunade to her core. For the first time in forever, there was hope that she could see the people that she hadn't seen in a long, long time.

Before there was even time to think about what was being offered to her properly, Kabuto spoke up once again with a cocky tone of voice. "You haven't killed us just yet. Does this mean that we have a deal?"

To add to what his apprentice if you will, Orochimaru started speaking. "You do want to meet them again Tsunade don't you?"

There was even more time between the last words of Orochimaru and the first coming from Tsunade. The buxom blonde was considering all of her options and once she decide on replying, she demanded answers from her former teammate with a fierce scowl on her face. "If I heal you, what do you plan on doing?"

Judging from the facial expression coming from Tsunade, Orochimaru knew that he had her right where he wanted her. There was no point in lying to her now. Even still, she could probably see through it and not want to heal his arms. "I hate to lie to such a pretty face Tsunade-Hime so I guess that I'll let you in on the truth.

I'm getting what I want. I'm going to obliterate Konoha to the ground one last time!"

**With Naruto and Jiraiya**

15 minutes behind the path of their intended target, Naruto and Jiraiya came across the site of a castle no more. They couldn't believe that something like this had happened. Who had such a motive to warrant destroying a castle?" It was then that the two were spotted by a man running along the ground beneath them. "You guys should run away! There's a demon beast up there!" The moment that Naruto heard the words demon and beast, he got into absolutely serious and listened as closely as possible to figure out what was happening.

Jiraiya wasn't as concerned as he had spent a lot of time around civilians to know that they generally over exaggerated things most of the time. If there was any hint of a Bijuu being in the nearby vicinity, then he would know about it. After all, he would have been able to sense the chakra from a long way away. The wonders of indirect sensory abilities coming from Sage mode training.

When he heard that A huge giant toppled the building instantly, the stone cold gaze of a veteran shinobi was etched onto his face in a moment's notice. The same thing happened on the face of Naruto albeit to a lesser extent as he knew what had caused this castle's destruction. It was the work of the person who he was going to have to kill. It was none other than Orochimaru of the Densetsu no Sannin.

Jumping down from the wall in which the two were situated upon, both Naruto and Jiraiya thanked the man before heading off with a hidden agenda. Since they were close to recent activity, Jiraiya put his hands together in the tiger seal and launched a pulse of chakra from his body. Thanks to the fact that he had incredible reserves, it meant that the Toad Sannin could search a much wider radius for Tsunade.

Getting a ping on the woman's location, Jiraiya headed off east with Naruto hot on his tails.

It was by no means surprising for Jiraiya when he narrowed Tsunade down into a bar. Jiraiya knew that Tsunade would have turned to alcohol after a meeting with Orochimaru. "Well Naruto, this is where dinner is coming from."

"What this place is a pub, I shouldn't be here."

Sighing, the godfather of one looked directly at the blonde haired boy beside him. "Gaki, the laws of the land of fire state that when you became a ninja, you also legally became an adult. This means that you can go into places like this and have no one question you. Now sit down, shut up and stuff your face."

Playing the fool; a position that he had perfected over the years, Jiraiya turned in the direction of his former teammate and spoke loudly. "Tsunade."

Whipping her head around to the familiar voice, the buxom blonde saw the self-proclaimed super pervert and some blonde haired kid beside him. "No Jiraiya, that isn't our kid! We haven't had sex before so you couldn't have found a bastard son of ours!"

Naruto could only look on in confusion as he had no idea what the hell was going on. What the hell was this old lady talking about!? Speaking of old lady, Naruto knew from the moment that he saw Tsunade, that she did not look 50 for one second. It was probably some kind of jutsu that she used to keep up her appearance.

Jiraiya on the other hand definitely knew what had caused such a reaction from Tsunade. He knew that it was barely into the night and Tsunade had gotten herself completely plastered beyond the point of no return. "It's never nice to see such a beautiful face so drunk Tsunade-Hime." As Jiraiya said this, he didn't even bother to ask whether or not it was okay to sit next to the two of them. He just went into their pod and sat on the opposite side.

Not really sure what to make of the situation, Naruto just stayed silent and sat down next to his sensei. From there the first thing that he did was pick up the menu and read it without looking at the two people that he knew nothing about.

Tsunade was never someone who could hold in a secret. She was one of the popular girls because of her lineage that loved to gossip. Add into the fact that she was completely trashed, well it meant that the woman had no hope of holding. "Today I met with someone who only brings back bad memories."

As Naruto 's eyesight was on the menu in front of him, his attention was solely focused on the conversation going on between his sensei and his sensei's former teammate. He wanted to hear more about the person who the snake clan was preparing him to kill.

Not only was Naruto paying attention but Jiraiya's eyes narrowed. "Orochimaru eh, did anything happen?"

"Ehh, not that much at all. We just had a little greeting." Tsunade said as she somehow managed to keep her words controlled enough. Jiraiya, having spent enough time around the woman knew that her speech was slurring a little bit. What he also saw was the poignant stare that Tsunade sent in the direction of Shizune. It was no doubt telling the black haired lady that she was not to speak about at all about what had happened moments ago.

It was at this stage that the waitress came and got the orders for both Naruto and Jiraiya and promptly came out with drinks for the two. A soft drink for Naruto and some rice wine for Jiraiya.

"So you too… why'd you come to see me this time?" Tsunade asked as she was genuinely curious to see one of the familiar faces that she hadn't seen in a long time.

_To see your tits. _"What, can't us, great friends that have stood the test of time together catch up once in a while?" As the silver haired man said this, he said it in a jovial tone with a smile on his face.

There was a bit of a drunken blush on the face of Tsunade. It was not because she was starting to feel anything towards the man in front of her; it was just because she hadn't seen Jiraiya for such a long time and the fond memories combined with the high amounts of alcohol allowed for the blush to spread on her face. Knowing Jiraiya though, he wouldn't have come here unless there was something of importance. This was especially true considering the last time these two met. Heated words had been thrown back and forth and Tsunade had drunken stated that she never wanted to see his face for a long, long time. It was something that the buxom blonde regretted quite a lot. Jiraiya definitely knew how to brighten up someone's life.

The look coming from the face of Tsunade, Jiraiya knew that the blonde haired woman was having a really hard time believing his story. "To tell you the truth, Konoha has issued a request for you to come back and become the Godaime Hokage."

There was a definite intake of air coming from both Tsunade and Shizune. As this was happening widened eyed expressions as they could not believe what they had just heard. Tsunade was someone who hated Konoha more than anyone save for her former teammate that she just saw. To think that she would just come to Konoha was a far stretch of the imagination. For to become the Hokage of Konoha… well Tsunade would tell him he's dreaming.

"With the third being…" Jiraiya trailed off as he wasn't really sure how he was going to break this news to Tsunade. There was the actual hope that during the conversation that Tsunade had with Orochimaru, Orochimaru had told Tsunade of what he had done.

The hope inside of Jiraiya was proved to be true when Tsunade spoke up next. "It was Orochimaru's work I know. He told me himself. Like usual, he felt that he needed to gloat to the world about it."

For Naruto, he didn't like hearing it any more now than what he did when he first heard about the death of the Sandaime Hokage. Sure, there were a lot of things that made the view that Naruto had on the man become jaded but he still did enjoy the moments that he had with the Hokage.

"So what's you answer?" Jiraiya asked as he was relieved with the fact that he didn't have to tell Tsunade that her sensei was dead. As Jiraiya was saying this, he was fairly confident on what the answer coming out of Tsunade's mouth was going to be.

With a snort of derision, Tsunade held her gaze to directly lock eyes with Jiraiya. "Impossible… I decline." There was no real surprise on the face of the Toad Sannin. He knew what was about to come. The man just hoped that with Naruto around, the two of them might be able to crack the thicker outer shell that was Tsunade's emotional defence mechanism.

With a bittersweet smile on his face that Tsunade didn't catch, the man who had loved the girl essentially on first sight spoke up. "Hehehe I remember in the past that you said the same thing when I asked you out." That Tsunade definitely heard and for her response, the only thing that she did was look down at her lap.

Naruto was incredibly surprised with the answer that Tsunade gave though. He thought that it was an incredible honour to be asked to become the Hokage of Konoha. If he was in the same position, he would have grabbed the opportunity with both hands and never looked back. The blonde haired boy wanted to know what the hell had made the woman in front of him decline what he considered to be a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Naruto wanted to open his mouth and ask the question why she didn't want the position. He held his tongue though as he felt like he was the third wheel in the conversation since his sensei hadn't introduced him yet. Naruto didn't want to jump in the conversation between two old friends.

Tsunade was also surprised. She intitially thought that since the kid wore a headband from her former village, that he would be appalled at someone turning down the offer to become the Hokage. Well Tsunade did see the look on the boy's face but she expected a bit of a confrontation between him and herself.

Guessing that the brat was intimidated with her status, she decided to comment about it. "It seems that you got another blonde haired, weak willed student just like last time." Not knowing that the "weak willed student" was actually the son of the man that she was criticizing, Tsunade had no idea why there was a scowl on the face of Naruto. If anything she thought that he would be happy that he was being compared to the Yondaime Hokage. "He seems stupider than your last one though."

This time there was a bit of a scowl on the face of Jiraiya. He knew that Tsunade was heavily drunk but that gave her no right to insult Naruto. It was at this moment Jiraiya could definitely feel his protective paternal instincts kicking in. He didn't want anyone, even if that included the love of his life insulting his godson. Jiraiya held back from commenting this time but knew that he wouldn't be doing the same thing the next time this happened.

Naruto could handle insults being thrown his way. He was used to them coming his way because of the Kyubi and what effect that had on Konoha's populace. With a whisper, Tsunade continued on her tirade against Minato Namikaze. "Even the fourth Hokage died quickly. He gave his life up for the village.

Life is different from money. It can't be gambled on that easily. Whoever puts there life at risk so easily didn't deserve it in the first place." Tsunade drunkenly declared. Shizune definitely didn't miss the rather vicious looks that were coming from both Naruto and Jiraiya. Shizune wondered whether or not her sensei had pushed the rope line in the sand just that little bit too far. The black haired woman hoped that this wouldn't bite Tsunade in the arse.

Before Jiraiya could say anything, it was Naruto who spoke up. The blonde haired boy had a few choice words for this …lady. If there was one thing that Naruto hated more than anything, it was people insulting his family. That feeling increased even more so now that he knew that they were dead and couldn't defend themselves. It was up to him to defend his family's honour.

Thanks to the fact that his was much smarter now and was in the process of developing a silver tongue, (something a good hebi clan member needed) the process of insulting someone got a whole lot easier. "To think that the girls my generation look up to you… I would neck myself if I found out the person who I had been admiring was such a pathetic piece of silicon trash."

Everyone at the table went dead silent. Even the people who were in booths that were close by went dead silent. When they had heard what Naruto had just said. They had noticed from the time hearing what was coming out of Tsunade's mouth that she wasn't the nicest person. To say something like that to her face… well you must have had a lot of confidence… or stupidity masked as confidence.

Tsunade couldn't believe what she had just heard! No one talked to her like that! Not even Jiraiya or Orochimaru who she had known for practically her whole life talked to her like that. She had been called a bitch before. That was something that she was not surprised by. She had been called that by a lot of jealous girls and women because of her bust.

No one dared to state that she was a bad role model for aspiring kunoichi though. She had struggled so much during her career as a ninja trying to get rid of the stereotypes and sexism that was so ingrained into her industry. There were so many people that said that women shouldn't be ninjas. They were the same people who said that a woman's job was to serve the man of the house in whatever need.

The final nail in the coffin of the blonde haired shitstain in front of her was the fact that the kid had said that her boobs were filled with silicon! Tsunade had dealt with tons of people calling her a flat chested woman when she was younger. Jiraiya was also included into this group. The moment that her late developing genes kicked in with a bit of fine-tuned medical chakra control and every single man took notice of her. It showed to the woman how pathetic the male race was and that there was very few, if any that she could trust in a romantic way.

"Who the hell do you think you are, you little piece of shit? Do you know that I could crush your skull with a flick of a finger! You should really learn to know when you're in over your head. If you piss of the wrong person, they could kill you in an instant." The not so subtle threat was picked up by everyone at the table.

Hearing the threat did not deter Naruto one bit. "I am Uzumaki Naruto and I can't forgive anyone who insults the Yondaime Hokage. Even if you did become the Hokage, I would be the first person to spit in your face at your inauguration." Fuck! As the words were coming out of the mouth of Naruto, it was only then that he truly realised what he was saying. Naruto knew that if he was in the presence of any member of the snake clan, then he would be receiving remedial training on etiquette. He had no idea of what that would entail mind you. The Kyubi jinchuuriki had no intention of finding out what would happen though.

Looking back on this time, Naruto would realise that he was venting the frustrations that he bottled up inside. Naruto's coping mechanism was to bottle up like most men. Said frustration would continue to be bottled up until it reached the point where no more emotion could be stored and then it would be released onto the either intended or unintended victim. Naruto was still dealing with the issues of finding out who his parents are and the death of the Sandaime Hokage.

The moment that the kid in front of her mentioned his name, Tsunade instantly shot a look of fury the way of Jiraiya. It was only after hearing the name did Tsunade realise why this kid was so familiar to her. Naruto was the very same child that little Kushina was having. She hated how Jiraiya brought someone who reminded her so much of a past time where there was a little bit more happiness in the world.

Seeing the look of fury that was in the eyes of Tsunade when she looked to his sensei, Naruto mistook the look. The Uzumaki genin thought that the look was directed because she knew that he was the Kyubi jinchuuriki. Naruto had no idea that this was a look taking into account who his parents were. Naruto thought that Tsunade was one of the people who looked down on him because of something out of his control. His dislike for her was steadily increasing.

Jiraiya also couldn't help but also think a little less of this version of Tsunade. He knew that she was plastered but this did not give her the right or an excuse to be a total bitch. Jiraiya truly felt bad for Shizune as he assumed that she would have to put up with this on a more frequent basis. "you have truly changed Tsunade…

I don't know what you have been thinking all of this time but you have just said everything that is on your mind." The slight patronizing could not be held out of his voice.

With a snort of derision, the buxom blonde spoke up. "Well age changes people. I am already into my fifties. It's the same for sensei. No wonder he died… he was too old to live in his dreams.

Being the Hokage is shit. No one but a fool would want to become the Hokage." Tsunade tried to say this with apathy but to Jiraiya, someone who knew her innately, he knew that there was bitterness inside of that voice.

Naruto couldn't take it any longer. He hated it when people brought down his dream to become the Hokage. That was something that he was used to unfortunately. What he couldn't take was someone insulting his family. Slamming his fist on the table, Naruto did his best to stop himself from exploding in anger in front of everyone.

"Your grandfather and your grand uncle must be real disappointments in your eyes then. It's no wonder that the Senju clan has become so weak in recent times what with clan members like you in it." Once again no one could speak. They couldn't believe that it was this kid of all people that was talking to Tsunade like this. The two people who were closest to Tsunade being Shizune and Jiraiya thought that this was something that was a long time coming.

Hopefully this would knock the buxom blonde off of the high horse that she was sitting on. There was a massive ego concerning Tsunade and it was something that needed to be toned down so that she could become a good Hokage of Konoha.

The last Senju was absolutely livid as to what this kid was saying. This was the first time in a long time that someone had gotten under her skin so easily. It was time to teach this wannabe ninja a lesson. "You've got some nerve kid! Howza bout we take this outside and settle it like shinobi."

Naruto was happy. He didn't initiate this confrontation but he was more than willing to put some perspective into this woman. It wasn't right for her to insult dead people. More importantly, it wasn't right to insult your dead family members.

**Out in the street**

Like what was seen in many of the theatre productions for the civilians, there was an empty street for the duel between Naruto and Tsunade to take place. Well that was to be if you didn't count Jiraiya nor Shizune. Those two were waiting to see what was going to happen. In the mind of Jiraiya, he was wondering whether or not he was going to have to step in at some stage during this fight.

Whilst Tsunade was heavily out of her prime and was just as equally intoxicated, if she was not careful or not feeling remorse, then the buxom blonde could kill Naruto very easily.

The same could be said for Naruto though as he could potentially do the same thing Tsunade was capable of. That was killing another person. Jiraiya could easily see the torrent of emotions running inside of his godson. If the boy tapped into the power of the Kyubi, then he wasn't too sure if Tsunade would be able to handle that in her heavily intoxicated state.

With confidence brimming not only because she was drunk, the buxom blonde decided in intiating in some trash talk. "I have been one of the three legendary ninjas since before you were even bon kid. There is no need for me to go serious against someone like you."

Yet again was there someone underestimating him and belittling him. It wasn't just this moment, but it was one that did contribute to Naruto getting the shittiest of first impressions possible from the lady. As far as he was concerned, _this_ Sannin was no better in his eyes than the large majority of Konoha's population.

Scoffing, Tsunade said one last thing before Naruto started running at her. "I bet that I could even beat you with one finger." As she was saying this, the inactive Konoha ninja forgot about her notorious history when it came to gambling.

Hoping that Tsunade would continue to underestimate him, Naruto charged in at Tsunade with his hands behind him. The plan was that the blonde haired woman would think that he wanted to engage in a straight taijutsu spar when that was the furthest thing from his mind.

Letting the Uzumaki genin run up to her, Tsunade was not expecting for Naruto to start going through hand seals at a substantial pace when he was five steps away from her. "**Fuuton: Renkudan no jutsu (Wind Release: Drilling Air Bullet Jutsu)**" Naruto called out as he ushered out his most powerful jutsu that didn't effect such a large area.

Eyes widening at the threat that the compressed ball of wind posed, Tsunade bent down and leapt backwards through the use of her thigh muscles. As she was landing down on the ground with Naruto's jutsu still coming for her, Tsunade jabbed her finger down at the ground. Thanks to her super strength and insane chakra control, the medical ninja did not take a single bit of tissue damage.

As she did this, the dirt beneath her rose up due to the inertia following Tsunade's super strength. The makeshift wall was enough to block the incoming attack from her distant relative. Thanks to the wall's creation, it gave Naruto the time to be able to create some shadow clones with Tsunade none the wiser. Five clones went around either side of the wall and three went over the top of it.

Seeing the amount of clones that the boy had created, the shinobi mind inside of the intoxicated woman rationalized that they were nothing than the academy taught clones. No one so young would be able to create anything more than that without suffering some sort of charka exhaustion. Said chakra exhaustion would make the clones in front of her have some kind of deformities to them.

Considering that they didn't anything wrong with them though, Tsunade was confident that these clones could not harm her. They were used merely for a distraction. Boy was she was going to eat those words soon.

The toad Sannin could only sigh in disappointment because he didn't know just how much Tsunade had fallen in recent times. He thought that she would be at a level where she could fight off a fresh Jonin. Seeing her have trouble against a fresh chunin though was embarrassment in his eyes for someone who had previously been so much better. It could only add onto the fact that she bet that she could beat his godson with the use of only one finger.

Just from this allowed Jiraiya to make a guess on who was going to win. The answer to that question was one that neither Tsunade nor Shizune would like to hear. The silver haired man actually hoped that Naruto won as Tsunade needed to get knocked off the high perch that she had positioned herself on.

Surprised that this kid was not as bad as she initially thought, Tsunade went on the offensive. Seeing all of the clones that the kid had made, the blonde haired woman wanted to scare the boy into submission. To do this, Tsunade used her super strength from years of training to instantly shatter the wall that she had created merely moments earlier. With all of the rocks that had created going in all different directions but her own, Tsunade watched quite impressed that the clones that had been made by the boy were real and not just illusions.

Like he had shown beforehand in glimpses, right now was another one of Naruto's bright and somewhat unconventional ideas. As there was a lot of smoke surrounding the area, the blonde haired boy took this opportunity to make even more clones in the cover provided.

Grabbing out his sword, Naruto and the 20 other versions of himself that he had just created ran out of the smoke in a fairly conventional manner. Just because it was a straight forward approach, it certainly did not mean that it was not effective. Because of how close Naruto was, it made it extremely hard for Tsunade to defend against so many people trying to hurt her. This was not even considering the fact that she had agreed to a bet where she would only use one finger to beat Naruto.

Seeing the onrushing blondes, Tsunade could see just how much of a threat it could possibly pose. Bringing her finger down yet again to create another wall to protect herself, the buxom blonde only saw at the last minute the incoming attack.

Unforunately for her, the clone that had fired off the **Fuuton: Renkudan no jutsu (Wind Release: Drilling Air Bullet Jutsu) **had not been destroyed. What sucked even more was that it had not taken its hands out of the hand seal for said jutsu. This meant that there was little to no downtime and it allowed the clone another chance to fire the jutsu. Since all of the chakra had gone to powering the jutsu, it dispelled the moment the jutsu was released.

Faced with the option of taking the hit and getting her attack off or simply dodging the incoming attack, the subconscious mind of Tsunade reverted back on countless years of medical ninja training. The first instincts inside of the aging lady were to jump back and dodge the attack.

Like always, the luck that followed Tsunade in her life was present once more. Once of the shards of the ground that she had destroyed had landed right in the path of her backwards jump. Combining this uneven terrain and her absolutely horrid motor control thanks to being completely wasted, Tsunade tripped over her own feet and landed flat on her arse.

With the incoming Narutos' readily awaiting the chance to deal off some damage, Tsunade negated her bet as she slammed her heel into the ground. This launched an offensive version of her previous move as the miniature tidal wave made out of rock ensued on Naruto.

In an instant, all of the clones that Naruto had produced were destroyed by the rocks as they all got hit. Naruto wasn't any luckier as he copped several rock blasts and even one to the face. Despite all of this, he powered on through and launched an aggressive swing of his sword and the downed Tsunade.

Had Naruto had the presence of mind to add wind chakra into the attack, then he would have killed one of the Densetsu no Sannin at the tender age of thirteen. Slicing across the top of Tsunade's chest, Naruto watched as his sword cut through the fabric of the sleeveless shirt of Tsunade. What he also watched was the way how his sword made a clean cut across the sternum.

It was only thanks to her shirt resisting gravity that the Uzumaki genin did not get to see the unclothed chest of the woman in front of him.

Red liquid was freely pouring out of her chest and the moment that the woman looked down she was sent into a quivering mess.

Seeing the somewhat catatonic state that his teammate of the good part of 40 years was in, Jiraiya instantly called a halt to the fight and went into his war general personality. "Naruto! This fight is over. Shizune, take Naruto back to this hotel" as the silver haired man said this, he handed the medical ninja a key. Nodding as she knew an order and a dismissal when she heard one, Shizune shunshined over to Naruto and ushered him away from her master.

Sure, she was concerned for the state that her sensei was in but what she also knew was that there no one better in bringing Tsunade out of a depressing moment than Jiraiya. He had been the person who had brought Tsunade out from the metaphorical grave on her two worst occasions. Shizune was confident that Jiraiya would also be able bring the old Tsunade-sama back in no time at all.

Feeling ecstatic that he had won the fight against such a famous fighter, Naruto was over the moon, That was why he did not question once when he heard the order from his godfather. He was too busy basking in the fact that he had defeated one of the Densetsu no Sannin.

As for Jiraiya, he had made his way over to the downed blonde and gently picked her up in his arms. During the process, the top that Tsunade had destroyed was now letting Jiraiya get a great view on Tsunade's exposed tits. There was the massive boner killer though of there being quite a substantial amount of blood on them. Still…

Knowing that he would have his work cut out for him tonight, Jiraiya put a low ranking genjutsu over Tsunade and then went to a hotel. Getting a high quality room, Jiraiya headed to the place where absolutely no magic would happen.

Getting into the bathroom and undressing Tsunade, he put her in the shower and washed off all of the blood that was on her. Once the blood flow had stopped, Jiraiya quickly used the limited knowledge he had on the only healing jutsu he knew to seal up the cut.

Since the clothes that Tsunade had been wearing previously were now dirty, the man clothed his teammate in some pyjamas, laid her in bed and kissed the crystal on her forehead. "The things that I do for you…"

It was sometime later that Tsunade, being under the warm blankets fell asleep as her breathing had slowed. the photo album definitely helped as the memories of happier times slowly but surely brought Tsunade out of her catatonic state of mind.

In a rare sign of affection, Tsunade agreed to let Jiraiya sleep in the same bed as herself. The condition was that the two had to be fully clothed. That was certainly not something that the silver haired man was going to argue about. After taking of his bracers and his headwear, Jiraiya hopped into his bed wondering what was going to happen tomorrow. The one thing that brought a massive smile to his face though was the slight smile on the face of the love of his life. It was nice to know that despite all of her protests, he was the only person who could bring a smile on her face.


	27. Reminds me

**A quiet day, an interesting night.**

The sun was shining quite brightly that morning and Naruto was pumped. He had just woken up the morning after his fight with Tsunade of the Densetsu no Sannin. The adrenaline pumping through his body was great. Having one against someone so acclaimed, it made Naruto feel as if he could take on the world and come out without any form of scratches or marks at all. He was literally in a world of his own where no one, not even the Yondaime Hokage could touch him.

Naruto wasn't so cocky as to think that he couldn't get better though. He knew that there was a lot for him to improve on. He still hadn't even completed one handed jutsus yet! The moment that he was able to do that, he knew that his ability as a shinobi would immensely increase. The mere thought of being able to use a jutsu as well as have his sword out for defence / offence depending on the situation made the blonde haired boy giddy.

Going outside of the hotel room that he had slept in that night, Naruto ran to the nearest clearing and started practising the one handed ninjutsus he was so desperate to learn. Not doing the stereotype any favours whatsoever, the blonde haired boy didn't bother to leave any form of communication back in the room to tell Shizune where he had gone off to.

**With Shizune**

Since she was a little older than Naruto, she loved the chance to sleep in. In truth, Shizune didn't mind waking up early but she would prefer if she could, just to get some extra hours sleep whenever possible.

One of the habits that the woman had developed during her time running from debt collectors with her sensei; was the routine chakra pulse to see who was nearby. Thanks to last night's meeting, she knew the distinctive signature that was Naruto Uzumaki's chakra signal. Expecting to find that in the room beside her, Shizune was proved wrong as it was nowhere near to be found.

Worrying that something might have happened to the boy who so bravely fought against her Master, Shizune this time used a much larger amount of chakra to sense the boy's location. This extra amount of chakra did nothing to calm the nerves of Shizune. In fact, the only thing that it did was make her even more worried for the blonde haired boy! She could not sense him anywhere nearby.

Panicking as she had no idea where Naruto could be or more for that matter why he was up so early without asking for any permission, Shizune took a couple of seconds to think of the most logical solution to this mess.

In the end, the Medical Ninja decided that she should go to Jiraiya-sama as he was the person who was in charge of the boy. He would have the best idea of where Naruto might be or he might know of a Sensory technique that would help out finding Naruto.

Getting dressed as quickly as possible, Shizune headed out to the hotel room that she had originally intended to stay at before Jiraiya-sama insisted that she take care of Naruto for the night. Before she closed the door behind her, the medic quickly grabbed a banana on the way so as to curb her hunger.

Like most hotels, the one that Jiraiya and Tsunade were staying at was one that had three sets of keys. One was for the hotel chain itself so that the rooms could be cleaned when the guests were away. The other two were for the clientele. As always, Shizune had one set of keys whilst Tsunade had the other set.

With this, the medic, in her haste forgot to knock on the door and see whether or not her master and Jiraiya were awake. They were not which was not that surprising to Shizune as she knew that Tsunade-sama was definitely a late night person rather than an early morning person; a direct contrast to herself.

Walking into the room after having opened the door, Shizune saw a sight that made her absolutely giddy inside. Unable to contain her excitement as it would implode greatly if she did not speak, Shizune couldn't help but let out a "Nawwwww".

Rolling up the sleeve of her kimono on her right arm, the 28 year old woman placed her left hand on her right wrist. Unsealing the contents of a small, temporary storage seal, Shizune pulled out her camera.

The reason as for all of the commotion on the part of Shizune was because of the compromising position that her sensei for the majority of her life was in. Not only was it such a sweet and tender moment for Tsunade, but it was also something that Shizune knew that she could use for blackmail purposes, should the need ever arrive.

Right in front of her, with the doona covers bunched around her waist was Tsunade lying on the stomach of her lifelong friend and teammate Jiraiya. Tsunade was in the cutest flannelette pink flower panamas in the eyes of Shizune. The blonde haired woman also had her hair out of her normal pig tails and let it frame her face.

If all that wasn't bad enough for when Tsunade woke up, then the fact that she had both of her arms wrapped around the torso of her teammate would embarrass her to no end. That coupled with the fact that she had the biggest smile on her face that Shizune had seen in a long, long time made the situation all the more sweeter.

Tsunade was not the only one to blame for this sappy moment as Jiraiya had one of his hands on the Tsunade's back. The other one was firmly pressed against the back of her sensei's head which rested on Jiraiya's broad chest.

Not being able to take it any longer, Shizune quickly started taking photos of Jiraiya and Tsunade from different angles. 15 photos in one second with flashes became too much for the subconscious mind of Tsunade to handle. It was high time for her to wake up and get rid of that annoying nuisance preventing her from having the best sleep of her life.

Because of the fact that she was not really awake to the idea of movement just right now, Shizune wasn't taken off guard by the swipe of her sensei's right hand. This meant that the precious camera was not harmed in any way shape or form.

Realising the potential danger that the device could come in which would ruin so much, Shizune immediately resealed the camera.

Unaware of this, Tsunade was happy because whatever was causing that beyond god dam irritating light was now gone. With that being said, the fifty year old woman went back to snuggling in bed. The pillow was very comfortable and surprisingly warm.

Her mind slowly came to the conclusion that pillows weren't as hard and generally weren't as warm as what this one was. Opening up her eyes, Tsunade was in for a surprise. Pillows at hotels were pretty much always white. This one however was a dark shade of green with a little bit of black on it.

Realising that this wasn't right, Tsunade fully opened her eyes as she pushed down on what she was lying on with both hands. Said movement made a groan come from her pillow. Noises were definitely not something that came from anything in the bedroom unless it was another person.

Understanding the situation that she now found herself in just a little bit better, Tsunade hoped that when she got insanely plastered, she was at least well enough to have not allowed a man to touch her body in an intimate way. Before she could properly come to that decision, Tsunade felt a throbbing pain in her chest.

Cursing internally as she couldn't remember what had caused her to suffer in such pain, the blonde haired lady opened the first two buttons in her flannelette pyjamas open so that she could see the wound. There was a sigh of relief from the lady as when she opened her shirt up; she saw that there was medical gauze tape covering her breasts. This gave more confidence to Tsunade in the fact that she didn't think that she had sex last night.

Remembering what she initially planned on doing, Tsunade looked down at the "pillow" beneath her and she could only gasp in horror at what lay before her. There was her bloody perverted teammate Jiraiya! What made it even worse was the fact that he was enjoying it very much judging by the smile on his face. The shock that came from this was enough to widen the eyes of Tsunade to comical proportions.

Falling back as she couldn't believe what she had just woken up to, the buxom blonde fell back on her arse. This certainly did not help matters as there was something rather hard poking into her inner thigh. Instantly knowing what it was despite the fact that she wanted to deny it as much as possible, Tsunade couldn't help but blush in embarrassment due to the situation she was in.

The Senju Heir honestly had no idea whatsoever in what she was supposed to do next. Admittedly, her first thought was to start chucking fists at her teammate. That though was a bit unfair as Jiraiya wasn't doing anything perverted and he was still asleep. Plus, she deep down knew that this was just as much her own fault as it was his.

Shizune couldn't hold it in any longer. She couldn't hold back the massive smile brewing on her face along with a squeal of happiness.

Immediately turning around to see where the noise had come from, Tsunade couldn't help but groan as soon as her eyes lay on their target. This was definitely something that the girl was going to let go. There was no possible bribe that she could use to get Shizune to never mention what she had just seen.

"This is so cute Tsunade-sama!" the black haired lady said as she albeit for now forgot her reason for coming over. Still not being able to figure a way out of the predicament that she found herself in, the only thing that the blonde haired lady could do was stare blankly at her assistant.

It was then that there was a groan coming from beneath her. Looking down, Tsunade could see that her teammate was about to wake up. If there was something that she didn't want to happen, then it was definitely Jiraiya finding about this! For the life of her, the middle aged woman couldn't get up. A part of Jiraiya that had a mind of its own was getting bigger and thus moving on the leg of Tsunade. The tickle was enough to prevent her from getting up as she was indecisive of whether or not to move herself or the offending object.

"Well I don't think I could have a better way to wake up in the morning, except for Shizune not being here and you not being clothed." The only loyal Sannin left stated with that infuriating smirk on his face that Tsunade hated so much.

Blushing at the implications that the silver haired man had just said, Shizune could only turn away and blush as in her mind was the picture of her sensei and Jiraiya going at it. Tsunade though, had a totally different reaction. At the start she thought that she was going to let her teammate off of the hook as long as he pretended that it never happened.

That idea was now well and truly flung out the window as Tsunade decided that Jiraiya deserved more than that and not in a good way! Without the application of chakra, the blonde haired woman launched a volatile slap to the face of the man she was straddling.

"Jeez… after what I did for you last night… you would hope that there might be some form of thanks but no…" As this was said, Tsunade went retrospective for a moment as she wondered what Jiraiya meant as she couldn't remember what it was that had happened last night. It was only a few seconds later that the woman remembered how she suffered from her condition of Hemophobia and how it was Jiraiya who helped her out. Now feeling massively guilty for what she had just done, or rather lack thereof, Tsunade didn't know what to do. Her pride wouldn't allow her to admit that she had done something wrong especially to Jiraiya of all people.

Feeling like a piece of shit for how he made the mood of the room drop so drastically, the perverted hermit sage knew that he had to lighten up the room. "But… I'll let you off the hook if you stay here for a bit longer." The way in which this was said was done with leery eyes which Tsunade new all too well what was going on the inside the mind of Jiraiya. If she was oblivious to that, then she was certainly not oblivious to the fact that Jiraiya had put one of his hands on either of her hips.

Humphing in disgust, Tsunade quickly got off of Jiraiya and scowled with her arms covering her chest. Turning her head to her student, Tsunade initiated a conversation with the woman. "So why did you come here so early in the morning Shizune? You know that I am a never an early morning person." There was a slight hint of annoyance coming from Tsunade when she said this.

Eyes widening to large proportions, Shizune remembered what it was that she had come here in the first place for. That was the fact that Naruto had gone missing and she had no idea if there was anything wrong with him. "Naruto has gone missing!" the black haired woman exclaimed with shock as she was slightly fearful of what Jiraiya-sama might do. He had instructed for her to take care of the boy.

Instantly the veteran shinobi that was Jiraiya instantly changed into his deadly serious persona. The change was one that did not go pass the watchful eyes of Tsunade. It was obvious to her that Jiraiya either deeply cared or had a large amount of interest in the boy.

What neither of the two females in the room knew though was that internally, Jiraiya was shitting bricks. They did not know about the Akatsuki that were searching for Naruto so that they could get the Kyubi out of him. They didn't know that the Akatsuki had such members like Orochimaru and Itachi Uchiha associated with them.

"Speak now and speak fast Shizune." The commanding aura that the shinobi displayed was enough to even get Tsunade to start feeling a little nervous. From what she had remembered of the night before, the damn gaki was capable of holding his own. What the hell was it that was making Jiraiya so damn paranoid? Let it be known that Tsunade was someone who hated not knowing what was going on. Her inner gossip monger was coming out to show.

"There was no trace or any sign of forced entry into the hotel room Jiraiya-sama. I tried sending out a chakra pulse to find out where he was but I could not find him. Since Tonton was with you two last night, I couldn't use her nose to track down Naruto's scent." Shizune said in quite a fast pace before taking a long breath at the end of her explanation as to the whereabouts of Naruto.

The plan was instantly formed inside the head of Jiraiya as he knew what he had to do. The silver haired man also knew that both Tsunade and Shizune might not like him for what he was about to do but he honestly didn't care. The medical ninja let loose that the pig in the room had a good sense of smell.

Searching the room in a very short amount of time, Jiraiya found the in demand animal and picked it up. This was something that woke up the pig and Tonton. A squeal was the noise that was coming from the pig as it definitely did not like being waken up so brazenly. "If you don't direct me to the little kid that you met last night piglet, then I am going to be having bacon for breakfast." Being able to understand the threat thanks to hanging around Tsunade for so long, Tonton backed down. The only thing that the pig did was look in the direction of Shizune for some support.

Shizune herself wasn't willing to go up against one of the Sannin when they had set their mind to something. That was especially true when it wasn't Tsunade. In truth there was only one thing that she could do to get Jiraiya-sama to put Tonton-chan down on the ground.

"Don't bother trying anything. After all of the things that I have done for you Hime, this can be part of you paying me back." With that said, Jiraiya took off faster than Tsunade remembered him being able to.

**With Naruto**

Oblivious to everything that was going on around him concerning his whereabouts, Naruto was practising his one handed ninjutsu. The blonde haired boy was happy with the training that he had been doing for the past two hours as he had found out a breakthrough in his training. One of his clones had come across the fact that if you had to have your hands in different positions respectively, then you had to form a mix of positions with the hand performing the jutsu. This was in contrast to picking one hand and forming the chakra in the same shape for both hands.

With this little breakthrough, Naruto found that his progress drastically improved in a small space of time. Before this, Naruto had been on the edge of breaking through to being able to do one handed hand seals. Thanks to this little revelation though, Naruto was now finally able to do one handed hand seals! Of course, the Uzumaki heir was only in the beginning stages but he could now perform the most minor jutsus with only one hand. This limited Naruto to E-rank ninjutsus such as the replacement technique and the other ninjutsus that he learnt at the academy.

It was only a matter of time until Naruto would be able to use any jutsu two handed, one handed.

Taking a short break, Naruto rested up against one of the trees inside the clearing that he had found. It was during this time that there was a rustling of the leaves in the area. Turning his head in the direction of the noise, Naruto did not have to wait long until he saw the incoming visage of his sensei.

For some strange reason Jiraiya was carrying a pig in his hands. A mere half second later and Naruto saw that it was the same pig that had been accompanying Shizune the day before. The Uzumaki genin could only wonder as to why his sensei was moving at such a fast pace towards him.

Not a moment later and the famed Toad Sannin was standing right beside him. The first thing that Naruto noticed was the fact that the usually smiling and happy expressions on the face of his sensei were long gone. Naruto wondered what it was that he had done to annoy his sensei so much to put him in a bad mood. Jiraiya was never one to get angry or serious over absolutely everything.

"Naruto, don't run off like that without telling someone where you are going!" The direct tone of voice made Naruto instantly feel as if he was going to have a lecture. He really only had them with Iruka on occasions and even less with the Hokage. Honestly, he didn't see anything wrong with what he did and it wasn't as if he was some completely helpless little kid. He was someone who had been trained by two of Konoha's strongest shinobi, to say the least, Naruto was not at all uncertain or not confident in his shinobi abilities.

Seeing the look of boredom and the rolling of the eyes on Naruto's face, Jiraiya knew what was going through the mind of his godson. Despite wanting to let Naruto not have to worry about yet another thing that would make his life shitter, Jiraiya also knew that Naruto had to be careful or the Akatsuki could take one single opportunity and pounce on it. If it was because of him not telling Naruto what it was that was coming after him that got the boy killed, then Jiraiya didn't know what he would do with himself.

"Naruto, from now on you are not going to be able to do whatever you want whenever you want. There are too many things that could happen to you. You know you are the son of the Yondaime Hokage and you are the sole remaining member of the Uzumaki clan that the world knows about. If someone caught a sniff of that information going around, then there would no doubt be several ANBU squads from different villages all trying to either kill you or make you their village's breeding factory."

That was something that Naruto blinked a couple of times once he heard what his sensei had just said. It had never really dawned upon him that there would be people after his blood or semen. For pretty much all of his life, he had been led to believe that he wasn't someone important. For all intents and purposes, Naruto believed that he was one of the lowest people in the social and power food chains.

Thus it was why that when he found out that he was practically the next thing down from royalty in terms of his social and political prestige, it never dawned to him that there would be consequences along with the positives. The blonde haired boy was brought out of his musings when the Toad Sannin started speaking once more.

"Also Naruto, I have caught wind of a group of people that you especially will have to be wary of and watch out for. They are called the Akatsuki. They are essentially a group of nine S-ranked missing ninjas whose goal is to rip out the Bijuu's that jinchuuriki have." Jiraiya let this sink into the mind of Naruto as he wanted to make sure that the boy perfectly understood just how serious of a situation this was.

"If you don't already know what happens when someone rips the Bijuu out of the jinchuuriki Naruto, it kills the host pretty much instantly." This rocked the core of Naruto. He wondered what it was that he did to deserve essentially every shit thing that life could possibly throw at you, all happening to him. Just when Naruto thought that life was getting better, the higher deities decided that they would through a curve ball right into his oncoming path.

There was no use crying over spilt milk or in his case complaining about all of the hardships that he had to go through in life because the Akatsuki were not going to wait for him. They were going to kill him via taking the Kyubi out of him whether he complained or put a fight. At least if he trained instead of bitching about it, then he could have a realistic chance of winning against this Akatsuki group.

The godfather was both impressed and surprised with the way in which Naruto was taking this information. Realistically, he thought that there was going to be a substantial amount of bitching coming from the boy. Jiraiya would have completely accepted Naruto to do some complaining about it. Heck! He knew that he would be doing just that if he was in the same position as his godson at that age.

"Do you know who any of the members of this group are? That way I can study who they are and what skills they have. I'll need to be as prepared as I can possibly be when I fight them to even stand a smidgen of a chance."

Affronted, Jiraiya spoke up with a bit of emotion in his voice. "What do you mean "I and I'll?" This isn't a Naruto takes on the world story, No matter what happens Naruto, both Kakashi and myself will be there right beside you when shit hits the fan."

It was definitely easy to say that the blonde haired boy was taken aback by what his godfather had just said. All his life, he had believed that when it came to pretty much everything he did, he was always alone whilst doing something. Whilst this did make the accomplishments that much sweeter because they all came from his hard work, it meant that there was no one to support him when he was going through tough times.

It was something that Naruto had gotten used to early on in his life. Hearing from his godfather that he was going to stick by until death came to fight off against insanely strong shinobi trying to kill him made Naruto feel very much reassured.

There was a massive smile on the boy's face. It was just as big as the smile that Naruto used to get out of either awkward or painful situations but this time, it wasn't a fake smile. It was one that showed just how relieved and happy he was to hear that Jiraiya and Kakashi were going to beside him through thick and thin.

"Thankyou" Naruto called out as he leapt and gave the man in front of him quite a substantial hug.

It was at this time that Tsunade came over after having gotten dressed to see the touching site of Naruto and Jiraiya hugging each other. It almost made the woman go "awww" but such an action was unbecoming of the world's biggest Tsundere. There was no possible way that Jiraiya was actually a good guy; he was far too much of a pervert to be good with kids. Then again… Jiraiya had left for three years to live with a bunch of orphans who needed someone to rely on more than anyone else in the whole entire world.

Shizune had no problem whatsoever and sighing in content at the touching scene in front of her. The black haired lady even went as far as to unseal the camera in her hand and take a photo of the scene unfolding in front of her eyes. It made Tsunade curious and apprehensive of the fact that there was the possibility that Shizune had pictures of other… incidents.

Breaking apart from the hug, Jiraiya had a familiar tingle run down his back. It was what he would refer to as his sixth sense. The sense where he was able to miraculously sense that there was a hot girl nearby. Using a bit of chakra to find out the location of said hot girl, Jiraiya looked and was not surprised at all to see Tsunade standing on a tree branch with Shizune by her side.

"Now come on down you two! We need to properly introduce one another before we go and have some breakfast, my treat!" Jiraiya stated in a jovial and not as serious tone as possible as he tried to break most of the ice. There was the definite possibility that there was going to be a substantial amount of tension going on between Tsunade and Naruto.

Hearing what his sensei had just said, Naruto turned over to look at the two people looking at him. When he saw the worried look on the face of Shizune, Naruto did admit to himself that he felt guilty for worrying the lady. Just because her sensei was the biggest bitch he had ever met, there was no reason to prejudge Shizune because of that. In fact, from what he remembered yesterday, she seemed quite nice.

When the two women jumped down from there tree branch the tension inside the clearing only increased as there was less distance between the two. Naruto made the first move for opening a conversation between the four of them. "Jiraiya-sensei said that you were worried about me this morning. I am sorry and should I have left a note letting you know where I was." Naruto said with a partial sheepish look on his face.

Smiling as she rested a hand on his shoulder, Shizune spoke up. "That's okay Naruto-kun, you just had me worried." In the back of her mind though, Shizune knew that she was going to get mercilessly teased by her sensei later on. It would no doubt go along the lines about her being too much of a worry wart.

After the black haired lady took her hand off of Naruto's shoulder, Tsunade started speaking. "Just to let you know kid, you wouldn't have beaten me last night if it wasn't for the fact that I wasn't taking it seriously. There's no way that a genin could beat a chunin let alone one of the Sannin like me." The aura of self-confidence that portrayed from the woman was so big that Naruto just believed it to be pure arrogance. He had seen nothing in the fight between the two of them to warrant that Tsunade was anything special. She might have had that special ability in the past but she was a washed up old has been from what he had seen.

"Pfft… You didn't show anything that justified you being a special Jonin let alone being on the same level of Jiraiya-sensei, he is so much better than you." Naruto knew that it might have been a mistake for him to say that her former teammate was better than her; right to Tsunade's face but the large and laughter that came from his godfather was worth it.

That was right up until the point where Tsunade moved at her fastest pace possible and unleashed a powerful punch right into the solar plexus' of Naruto. This was a punch that was powered by the super strength that Tsunade had developed over time and it definitely did a lot of damage to the young boy in front of her.

Naruto was wheezing on the ground trying to catch his breath as he was in a world of pain. Struggling to open his eyes, Naruto saw the form of Tsunade standing over the top of him, bearing down at him. "You are a million years too young to be at my level gaki" and with that said, Tsunade humphed and walked back to where Jiraiya and Shizune.

"That was only at 60% power; at 100% I can shatter bones on contact." Tsunade said without bothering to turn back and look at the boy who was now on his haunches instead of being face first into the ground.

Naruto was wide eyed. That punch was a real eye opener. The small increase in ego that was developing was now brought back down to earth. Naruto now realised that there was just as much of a gap between Naruto and the top shinobi of the world. He had thought that that the gap was quickly closing after his training from both Manda and more recently Jiraiya. It was apparent that Naruto had a long way to go to where he needed to be.

**Later at night**

The day had passed and what had had amounted to was that the two eldest of the group were out at a bar drinking. Right at this point in time both Tsunade and Jiraiya were reminiscing about earlier days.

The day for the four of them had started off rather interestingly but settled down a whole lot when it was decided that they would have breakfast together. Despite the instance that they pay for themselves, Tsunade was slightly grateful that Jiraiya had taken no for an answer.

The rest of the day had been fairly straight forward. Being the hyperactive boy that he was, Naruto was eager to get back to his training now that he had had a full feed of food. Oddly enough Shizune had decided that she was going to tag along with him. This was a surprise to Tsunade but in the end she didn't bother and she wasn't going to be alone either.

Shizune was someone who hadn't had a lot of contact with people who she could be around without being worried that one of them would try and collect debts that Tsunade owed. What this meant was that it allowed the lady to relax and be at a sense of peace with herself. What this also did was that it gave the opportunity to Shizune to learn more about the kid who had beaten her sensei.

She was definitely surprised when she saw him train. The amount of dedication and energy that he was putting into everything was truly remarkable. Shizune couldn't believe the ingenuity in the boy when she watched him train through the use of clones.

Seeing the skill that the boy possessed, Shizune was curious as to how he would go in a fight. Sure she had seen Naruto against her master Tsunade but that could hardly be classified as a proper fight. Tsunade was so severely drunk that it was really a fight that couldn't judge Naruto properly.

What this all boiled down to was that Shizune asked Naruto if the two of them could have a spar.

The resulting end to this spar was not something that Shizune would like to admit to. Whilst she was winning the spar between the two of them… the black haired lady was not completely dominating Naruto as she probably should have done due to her rank. A Jonin should not have had anywhere near as much trouble as what Shizune was having with Naruto.

It only showed just how much Shizune had taken her training not as seriously as what she should have. Shizune had not had to use her muscles in anything overly strenuous in a long time. Whenever quick movement was needed by the Konoha ninja, the go to choice was using chakra to enhance her movement speed.

There was really only the occasional ninja that came to collect the debt that Tsunade owed. Even then, when that happened, the combat prowess of Tsunade was enough so that she was not really needed in the fights.

The realisation came at full force to Shizune as she now knew that she had to take her training much more seriously. As if the threat of Orochimaru wasn't bad enough, not being able to clearly defeat Naruto was a hit to her pride.

On a more personal level though, having more time to spend with Naruto allowed Shizune to see how much of a nice kid the boy was. He was kind and courteous but when the situation called for it, he could go into shinobi mode in almost an instant. Shizune was also very impressed with the amount of skill that Naruto had in the shinobi arts at such a young age.

The amount of potential that she could see in him made Shizune believe that if given the right circumstances and some time, then Naruto's dream of becoming the Hokage would definitely be achievable.

As all of this was happening between the two, both Jiraiya and Tsunade were having a laugh together. The two middle aged shinobi were reminiscing about all of the adventures that they had shared with one another.

There was a long and loud laugh when they both remembered the first time that Jiraiya tried to learn his now signature hair ninjutsu. That, or the time where Orochimaru failed on the jutsu which made his tongue longer than normal. Orochimaru not being able to contain all of his tongue in his mouth was hilarious!

By the time that they had dried up all of conversation paths about their time as a team, Jiraiya was curious as to what had been happening for Shizune and Tsunade during their time outside of the village.

Tsunade definitely making it harder than what it had to be for Jiraiya to get the answers that he wanted. The toad Sannin was one of the world's best spy masters for nothing though and got the information. From what he had discerned, it was actually Shizune looking after Tsunade rather than the other way round.

A lot of the earlier times during the time away from Konoha was spent in getting completely plastered on the behalf of Tsunade with Shizune having to pick up the pieces even though she was only entering her teenage years. As this was certainly not an environment for a teenager to grow up in, the granddaughter of the first Hokage had a breakthrough moment.

For the sake of Dan's niece (not Shizune) she would have to curb her misconduct as the girl had no other role models and Tsunade didn't want for anyone to end up just like her. She especially didn't want that person to be the niece of her former lover.

Until Shizune was in her early twenties and not as much dependant on her master, Tsunade started teaching everything that there was to teach in medical ninjutsu to Shizune. Unfortunately for Tsunade, Shizune wasn't the fastest of learners and it took her a while to learn the source material. What the black haired woman lacked in natural ability, Shizune made up for it in eagerness and willingness to learn.

Somewhere along the way during their trip, Shizune found an injured piglet and fell in love with it the moment she locked eyes on the small animal. The theory of Jiraiya about Teacup pig was definitely not just a myth. It worked on woman like a charm.

The moment that Shizune had graduated from being a girl to a woman in the eyes of Tsunade was the moment that the blonde haired woman regressed to some of her more self-destructive tendencies.

It was at this point that Tsunade promptly shut up shop and stopped talking. For the conversation between the two to keep on going, Jiraiya knew that it was going to have to be him to start talking instead of listening.

By the time that the man had finished, it was already getting late and neither Jiraiya nor Tsunade realised that it was dinner time. After meeting up with Shizune and Naruto, the four of them went out to have dinner as a group. Once again, there was tension going on between Naruto and Tsunade. This time though, it was better handled and nothing outrageous happened.

By the time dinner was over, the night was late and Jiraiya had all but ordered for Naruto to go to bed. Sensing that this again was a conversation where she would only be a major third wheel, Shizune took the initiative to make her exit.

With a shot glass of sake in his hand, Jiraiya brought up a topic that needed to be discussed. "I know that you had a meeting with Orochimaru Tsunade. Even if we didn't get to speak much about it yesterday, I could see it instantly from the way how Shizune reacted."

Despite trying to not act like she was surprised, Tsunade couldn't help but take a lot longer to swallow the saki in her mouth. The blonde haired woman instantly knew that this was going to be a conversation that she wasn't going to like.

"Yeah, so what?" Tsunade Replied in an offhanded manner.

With a neutral expression on his face, Jiraiya stared directly at his former teammate. "What did he want with you?"

"He and I just had a little chat about some recent injuries that he had sustained." Again, this was said in a tone of voice by Tsunade that clearly displayed the fact that she did not want to talk about it.

Seeing all of the signals that his former teammate was putting out did not deter Jiraiya one bit. In fact, it only served to further his determination for this conversation. If there were things that Tsunade didn't want for him to hear, then they were obviously things that he needed to hear.

"Don't make a hasty decision Tsunade, I know you and I know Orochimaru better than anyone else. I know he would have offered you something too good to be true. I also know that you would seriously consider doing it, despite knowing that there can be nothing good that comes from the man who betrayed us and your grandfather.

There is one thing that I want to make clear though Tsunade…If you do anything that betrays the hidden leaf village, then make no mistake, I will kill you."

Affronted, Tsunade got a little bit more anger into her voice as she replied. "It has nothing to do with me…"

"Only a murderer would show no feelings knowing people close to them are dead. You're not like that are you…?" the open aired question from the silver haired man was one that hit closer to home that Tsunade chose to admit.

"Stop lecturing me already! Now why did you bring that little brat with you? Even for you, that's a low blow." The moment that Tsunade said this, she took a swig from her cup of saki.

Visibly annoyed with what had just been said to him, Jiraiya responded in a way that he hardly ever used to Tsunade. "Bitch Please, I was heaps closer to Minato than you ever were and that's including the fact that you were related by blood.

I go through more pain each time I see him every day than you ever will." The serious look on the face of Jiraiya was one that Tsunade couldn't help but flinch at. It wasn't so much what Jiraiya had said, it was what he didn't say that hurt her even more.

She knew that she should have been there for Kushina's son. Like Jiraiya said, she wasn't that close to her previous last remaining family member but that was no excuse when there was an orphaned family member out there, especially since they were a young kid.

"He seems like a good young kid, quite like Minato in terms of personality… almost as good a shinobi as he was at that age too." Tsunade said as she wanted to change the conversation from where it was. It was at an awkward topic that she wanted to pretend never happened.

"If you think he is good now, you should have seen what he was like six months ago. Naruto has done a complete one eighty in terms of personality. He used to be the spitting image of his mother. Would you even believe that he was the dead last in his class just like I was?"

Evidently by the expression on the face of his former teammate, Tsunade couldn't believe what she had just heard. It was impossible to think that half a year ago that the kid was just like Kushina in terms of personality. What was even harder to believe was the fact that Jiraiya said that Naruto was the dead last of his class! There was no fucking way that could possibly be true!

She had seen him in action and she knew that the kid was a prodigy! There was no way that Naruto was dead last of his class. It was impossible that every other kid in his year were better than him.

Before Tsunade could go any deeper into her thoughts about Naruto, it was the voice of her former teammate that brought her back to drunken reality. "You know… It'd be really great if Naruto had a female role model in his life."

"Don't do that Jiraiya; don't go fishing for strings to pull when there aren't any there. Don't try and use Naruto as a way for me to come back to the village. It's not going to work." Despite this, the look that was on the face of Tsunade was one that the silver haired man knew all too well. It was the one where she felt sorry for someone or something.

"I'm not trying to do anything like that Tsunade. With Naruto being the jinchuuriki of the Kyubi, you know as well as I do what kind of childhood he would have had. Naruto hasn't had any female role model more than five years older than him and even then, that didn't work out."

Seeing the look on the face of Tsunade was still one that made Jiraiya know that his blonde haired teammate didn't buy his story, Jiraiya knew of only one thing that would work.

"You do know that you not being a part of his life would mean that there would be negative effects for Naruto right?" The moment that the silver haired Sannin said this, he instantly knew that he had got Tsunade hooked to hear more from him.

"Whether you want to hear it or not, the facts are that Naruto will become more and more like me and Kakashi because we are his only role models. It doesn't matter if we hold back our personalities; Naruto will imitate us and pick up our personality traits.

Not only that but when it comes to dealing with women, he would only learn from one side of the story. If you don't stay around, there is no doubt that Naruto will turn out like me in terms of relationships, favouring quantity over quality." Jiraiya purposefully left out the fact that his reasoning was that he couldn't have the woman he wanted so instead he fucked everything with a pulse.

After this was said, there was a poignant silence in the air as neither Jiraiya nor Tsunade knew what to say next. Eventually, it was the blonde haired woman who spoke up. "Come on Jiraiya, I know you're a sleaze but give yourself some credit, you raised those kids in Amegakure and you practically raised Minato, I know you'd do a great job with them."

It might have been the alcohol but the response that Tsunade got wasn't the one that she was expecting. She was hopefully expecting Jiraiya to blush. It was a sight that she hadn't seen since the silver haired man exited his teenage years. Instead, what she got was a look that she hated seeing on anyone that she cared about.

"And look how that turned out. All four of my students have died young deaths. Who's to say that Naruto won't be number five?" Jiraiya didn't even bother looking at Tsunade as he said this. He was too busy fixating on the alcoholic drink in front of him.

Seeing the turmoil that Jiraiya was going through and being in her drunken state, Tsunade thought that what she had in mind to comfort her friend was acceptable. Plus, even if he did mention something about it, she could always use the best excuse in the book; that excuse being that she was drunk.

Unlike what would have been socially acceptable, Tsunade got off of her bar stool and got behind her teammate with Jiraiya none the wiser. The silver haired man's mind was elsewhere and it wasn't until he felt the breasts of Tsunade pushed into his back and petite arms wrap around his broad chest.

The moment that he felt this happen, Jiraiya raised his eyebrow and turned his head around to face Tsunade. "Don't say anything. Just enjoy the moment." As the busty blonde haired woman said this, she laid her chin on the shoulder of her teammate.

It was a reflex reaction but as the hands of the woman he loved wrapped around his body, Jiraiya couldn't help but flex his pectorals. It was only for a split second but it was enough for the spasm of muscles to catch the eye of the drunken Tsunade.

Absentmindedly, Tsunade started trailing her fingers on the skin beneath the green kimono. She was making light touches along the skin of Jiraiya. This was an action that brought the hairs on the back of the silver haired man's neck to stand up.

This was new territory for Jiraiya. The man certainly didn't mean being the one on the receiving end of advances, he also didn't mean being in a more than friends situation with Tsunade. That had happened a long time ago but the busty blonde would always prevent him from going anywhere.

What was happening now was completely different though. This was the first time in all of the time that they had known each other that Tsunade was making the first move.

Testing the waters, Jiraiya slowly pushed his back harder against the chest of Tsunade. He was not disappointed one bit as she also pushed harder into his back.

Having had enough of this, Jiraiya turned his head around so that he could look into the eyes of his love, thinking that tonight might be the night. Looking directly into those hazel eyes, Jiraiya found himself getting hard as both their chests' pressed together. He could easily feel the massive breasts and it was a good feeling.

As the two stared into each other's eyes, it was Tsunade who was the first person to lean in. In the split second that this happened, Jiraiya had the biggest smile on his face and shortly thereafter, he too started closing the distance between himself and the love of his life.

As the two sets of lips connected softly with a lot of emotion behind him, Jiraiya brought his right hand up to the neck of Tsunade. Getting his index finger and his middle finger in a position that he would also use for another situation, Jiraiya channelled some chakra into the two fingers and jabbed them into Tsunade's neck.

The response was immediate from the blonde haired woman collapsed into the awaiting arms of Jiraiya. Despite wanting to be with Tsunade more than anything, fucking her would be great short term wise but fucking horrendous for the long term.

"How do I get myself into these fucked up situations?" The silver haired man said to himself more than anyone else.

This wasn't the first time that things had happened between himself and the Senju queen. Each time that had happened though, Tsunade was plastered beyond the point of redemption. This was so much so that she didn't remember the events of the night before.

What made this whole thing worse was that each morning after, Tsunade didn't remember a thing about what had happened the previous night. When questioned about it, the slug summoner would always deny that said events ever happened. It got to the point in which there was just no point for Jiraiya to even mention what had happened.

His thought process also went down a similar line to when the whole kissing thing happened again. Whenever they kissed, the resulting days would be nothing but a depressing affair as Jiraiya would get his hopes up of being in a relationship with Tsunade. He didn't want that to happen this time around because he knew that it would only end in pain. That was why he cut things short before they could properly develop.

Paying for both himself and Tsunade, Jiraiya picked his teammate up only to be met by some questioning stares. Ignoring them, the Sannin started on his journey back to the hotel in which he was staying in.

Little did the man know that, for the first time, Tsunade would remember what had happened the night before.

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><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

**Just read a story from an author which is pretty much copying parts from my story "Ying and Yang, what a difference it can make" and I have to say it is quite a dick move. They did not send me any form of message to me to ask if they could use parts of my story. Even to the point of naming Naruto's brother the same name as the name that I used.**

**I would have thought that it was common courtesy to ask for things like this. If you had, then I would have happily let you use some things (within reason of course)**


	28. That there's time to grow

**Author's Note:**

**Long time no update I know, sue me. Just recently got my mojo back after having read a few of some of the good stories for Naruto. Because the good part of the story is coming up at the time skip, expect me to go through the next few parts leading up to that whilst skipping a few of the fights.**

**Also a forewarning, chapter lengths are going to decrease to around the 5k mark isntead of their usual 10k. they are much easier to write and it also means that you get them more frequently.**

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><p>If anyone asked what the odds were for Jiraiya and Tsunade to sleep together in the same bed two nights in a row with both mornings the two ended up being in rather intimate positions, people would think you were mad for even bothering to ask.<p>

The fact of the matter was though that this did indeed happen. Unlike the previous morning where Tsunade was lying on top of Jiraiya, this time around they were in the spooning position with Jiraiya being the big spoon.

The funny thing was that when he placed her drunken form in bed, Jiraiya made sure that the two of them were facing opposite directions before falling asleep. He didn't want to have to deal with a beyond pissed Tsunade who was dealing with a hangover. Any sane man wouldn't.

Also different compared to yesterday was that Jiraiya was the first person out of the two to wake up. He certainly didn't expect to feel something between his arms. The silver haired man wasn't complaining though. He didn't normally find himself in situations like this. Usually, either himself or whoever he fucked the night before would get up and make a hastily exit.

The emotions he was feeling thanks to this were nice. He didn't want this to end anytime soon. Jiraiya was content to let this go on for as long as it could. The fact that it was Tsunade that he was with made it even better!

Of course he knew that when the she beast woke up, it would be rather… interesting to say the least. He was counting on the fact that when she woke up, he would pretend to be asleep and that it would blow over.

Jiraiya's right arm was around the waist of Tsunade, resting on the band of elastic that held her pyjamas onto her hips. His head was resting lightly on the shoulder of the blonde haired woman.

Said woman was blissfully unaware who it was that she was sleeping with. All her subconscious mind could tell was that it was a really good feeling. The feeling of being securely held by a man was one that she hadn't experienced in a very long time. These emotions that were being generated as she slept were more primitive in a sense as the blonde was still of mating age and she was looking for her alpha.

Two hours later and neither one of them had moved from the position that they were in. The silver haired man fell asleep pretty quickly after he woke up to find himself spooning Tsunade.

Again he was the first to wake up the next time. He wasn't alone this time however, the buxom blonde also found herself waking up. Luckily for her she did this without alerting Jiraiya that she was now awake.

Admittedly, she was shocked when she realised that there was someone giving her a hug from behind. It was right then and there that the memories of the night before came flooding back to the conscious mind of Tsunade.

There was a blush that came on her face as she remembered exactly what had happened last night. She remembered being the one making the first move in hugging Jiraiya whilst pressing her tits into his back. She also remembered Jiraiya turning around and raising his eyebrow at her.

Whilst that was fairly bad for her, it was nowhere near as bad and as forward as what happened after that. The blonde haired lady would never in a million years think that she would start running her hands along her teammate's body. The only excuse that she could come up with for her actions was that she was heavily drunk.

Unfortunately for Tsunade, there was no hangover whatsoever to back her statement up.

When those thoughts deserted her, the only thing that Tsunade could think about was how the night ended. All she could think about was the kiss that the two of them shared with one another.

The blonde haired woman would be the first to admit that she liked the feeling of Jiraiya's lips connecting to her own; at least to herself and maybe, MAYBE Shizune if the girl was lucky. Tsunade was also damn sure that Jiraiya liked it. She knew that he loved her and she thought that given his activities… he would have given his left nut to fuck her.

The question inside her mind was why the hell then wasn't she naked with the smell of sex permeating the air around her? She was willing enough when she was drunk. Why did Jiraiya reject the opportunity to have sex with her? Why did he knock her out?

Was there something wrong with her that he no longer found attractive? WHY DAMMIT did he leave her with these questions?

It was then that she felt her hair being pulled back behind her ear as well as feeling her neck getting moved so she was facing up towards the ceiling. The next thing that happened shocked the hazel eyed woman.

"If only…" With that said, Jiraiya planted a firm but soft and elongated kiss on the forehead of Tsunade right where her diamond was. Using all of the training that she had in the art of facial expressions, Tsunade did her upmost best to convince Jiraiya that she was still asleep.

When she felt that he got up and walked away, the Senju queen allowed her face to scrunch up as she tried to figure out the meaning of the words that she had just heard. _What the fuck does "If only" mean? Why do all men have to be so complicated? Argh! They're all jerks! _Tsunade never knew that there was a blush marring her face as she could still feel the lingering sensations from the kiss.

When Jiraiya left the room of the small apartment that he had hired, Tsunade instantly bolted into the shower trying to give herself as much time as possible to think things through.

**Time skip**

Naruto was having a great time thanks to the large amounts of training that he had been doing over the past week in Tanzaku-Gai. Thanks to the rather ridiculous diet in the eyes of many and an insane workout according to everyone bar Might Guy and Rock Lee, Naruto was improving a lot.

Considering where he was just a short while ago, it was a miracle that the blonde haired boy had healed up his injury to the level of what it was just before his fight with Gaara.

That was all of the recovery work that Naruto had done. When it came to anything above his waist, Naruto was distinctly more muscular than what he was two weeks ago. It was enough that not only could Naruto feel it but Jiraiya could also see it.

Not only was Naruto making progress in his physical training, the blonde haired boy was making strides in his ability to produce one handed ninjutsus. Naruto could now perform the two C-rank ninjutsus that he knew with relative ease although he was still having some trouble with the B-ranked one that he knew.

In conjunction with all of the improvements Naruto was making in taijutsu and ninjutsu, the Uzumaki clan heir was making just as, if not more impressive strides in his Fuuinjutsu. The highlight of this training was that he had managed to produce his first ever seal. It was a simple storage scroll but that didn't matter to Naruto or Jiraiya. The fact that he had successfully managed to create his first Fuuinjutsu was something that he was really proud of.

Naruto was also using his ninjutsu twice a day to make sure that he didn't regress any of the skills that he had trained hard to achieve.

During the week Shizune had come up to both Naruto and Jiraiya whilst Tsunade was off getting her nails done and told them exactly what had happened with Orochimaru. The guilt was just something that the black haired lady couldn't deal with. The main sticking point of the whole story was how Orochimaru had offered to revive the two people she cared about the most.

Jiraiya then proceeded to call bullshit on this as he had seen firsthand what had happened when Orochimaru revived dead people. They had no soul and thus they were merely a husk of a person that you once knew.

The widening of eyes by Shizune was enough to make it known that she was now fearing for the safety of her sensei. It was a damn trap which had no good ending if Tsunade decided to take up the Snake Sannin on his offer.

After a bit of time had passed, both Shizune and Jiraiya realised that Tsunade was taking longer than normal to get back and when they both looked at each other, they knew what was going on. The medic ninja instantly picked up Tonton and told the animal to direct the three of them in the direction of Tsunade.

Moving in the direction of Tsunade at the fastest speed that Naruto was comfortable with, the trio of ninjas fairly quickly located the Slug Sannin. By the time they got to her location they realised that it was a complete cluster fuck of broken boulders and craters littering the ground. This was no doubt of a sign that Tsunade had been in a fight very recently.

It seemed as if Tsunade was tiring after all of the chakra that she had expended using her super human strength. Kabuto was preparing to use a kunai from his pocket to attack the woman but before that could happen, there was a large plume of smoke from right beside the Senju Queen.

"Long time no see, Jiraiya." Orochimaru said as he stared down the white haired man with his wild looking eyes.

"What's up? Seems like you haven't changed one bit." Jiraiya stated as he too looked directly at Orochimaru, wanting to see who would give up first. It was the sight of Naruto that broke Orochimaru out of his staring competition to glare with animosity at the direction of Naruto. "So you're the one that they're going to try and replace me." As he said this, Orochimaru couldn't help but unleash some killing intent in an attempt to threaten the boy. To his surprise though, Naruto didn't seem fazed by it.

As he had a good look at the boy, Orochimaru could easily see the resemblance between this kid and the man who he absolutely abhorred for taking his title as the Yondaime Hokage. _He's Minato's brat. _The moment that the recognition seeped though, Orochimaru narrowed his gaze and gave an intense stare at the blonde haired boy. "There's been a change of plans Kabuto, I don't care about the Akatsuki anymore, kill the boy."

Nodding to say that he got the order loud and clear, Kabuto got into an offensive stance, ready and waiting for the battle to commence.

Meanwhile, as this was happening, Naruto couldn't help but look on in shock at the fact as to who was standing right next to the Snake Sannin. There was Kabuto who was "supposed" to be a leaf genin and yet here he was wearing a sound village headband standing next to arguably the greatest traitor in the history of Konohagakure.

Connecting the dots, Naruto pieced together that Kabuto was a spy and all of that time he spent with Konoha was just an act. He knew he was right to trust that uneasy feeling when he was around the man.

Unwrapping the bandages that were on his master's arms, Kabuto quickly wiped some blood on the seals so as to summon a large snake.

When the snake came out from the smoke, it awaited its orders from Orochimaru with disdain.

"We need you to kill that blonde haired kid over there." Kabuto said as he pointed in the direction of Naruto.

"I don't take orders from you. I only take them from members of the Hebi clan." It was then that the snake sniffed out where his intended target was just in case Orochimaru asked for him to kill the boy. Getting the whiff of a familiar smell the snake focused in on it and recognized it as the one of Naruto Uzumaki, their newest summoner. "I am not killing him, you should know better than that Orochimaru." The snake hissed out with obvious distaste lacing his words." With that said, the snake dispelled itself and returned home.

Witnessing all of this unfold, Orochimaru hissed with anger at the fact that his summoning clan had essentially turned their back on him.

Given the fact that Kabuto had just wasted a large portion of his chakra summoning nothing and him not having any access to his arms; he knew when the situation was not in his favour and knew when to retreat. There was nothing that he had up his sleeve which would allow either himself or Kabuto the time to kill the brat with Jiraiya and Tsunade's apprentice watching over him.

"Kabuto… we're leaving." Orochimaru ordered his underling. Having heard this, Kabuto pulled out a smoke pellet and through it at the ground.

The trio of ready shinobi on the other side waited for the smoke to disappear to see if the threat had gone away. Once it did, all three of them turned their head over to the downed shinobi which was Tsunade.

Jiraiya was the first to speak. "Crap, it would be really great if she didn't have to suffer from Hemophobia."

Quickly getting down onto the ground next to her sensei, Shizune started going through the hand seals of a medical jutsu. Before she could complete that though, Jiraiya put a hand on the woman's shoulder. "Shizune that wound isn't life threatening and Tsunade really needs to get over her fear of blood."

For the blonde haired woman who was in an almost cationic state, she didn't hear the words coming from Jiraiya. She did however lock up even more when she felt the hands of her former teammate on either side of her cheek. When he leaned in even closer, she started to panic even more. The moment that his lips connected onto her own, Tsunade felt her body go completely stiff compared to the shaking associated with hypothermia.

It was soft and tender the way that he pressed his lips onto Tsunade's and in all honesty, Jiraiya didn't expect much from this. Admittedly, he expected for Tsunade to get super angry at him kissing her which would break her out of her funk. He certainly did not expect for her to respond to the kiss by nibbling on his lower lip.

Not looking a gift horse in the mouth, Jiraiya decided to continue on with the kiss. Both Shizune and Naruto were shocked beyond belief at what they were witnessing. Never in a million years did she think that the two of them would hook up although she wished for it to happen knowing that it would make Tsunade the happiest person in the world.

Naruto, someone who looked up to Jiraiya as he was one of the boy's only role models with the other being Kakashi didn't know what to think about what he was witnessing. It was the first time that he had seen someone that he respected in a romantic situation. He was busily studying the making out because he had very little experience in the art and it seemed like Tsunade definitely liked what she was feeling.

When the duo stopped their kissing to regain their breaths, Jiraiya, with a smirk on his face spoke up. "Feeling better Hime?" Realising just what she had done after hearing the words, Tsunade shrieked and gave a chakra enhanced punch.

"Hey he helped you out and all you do in response is punch him!" Naruto called out with disbelief and anger in his voice. He really didn't like Tsunade at all.

It was then that Tsunade caught on to what her teammate had done. He broke her out of her Hemophobia trance. Looking down at the blood that littered her body was unnerving and she didn't like it one bit but she knew that she had overcome her fear. A smile appeared on her face. "Yeah, he has done a lot hasn't he?" Tsunade said. The rhetorical question went unanswered and she struggled to her feat.

Her apprentice helped her to Tsunade to her feet and Naruto just stood there awkwardly. He didn't know how to act in this situation. Thankfully Tsunade took control of the situation. Placing a hand coated with medical chakra, the blonde haired woman started mending the injury that Kabuto had caused and headed over towards where Jiraiya lay. "let's get outta here."

**Later**

The four shinobi that were leaving Tanzaku-Gai all had smiles on their faces. Each for their own reasons, the quartet of shinobi were happy to be returning back to Konoha.

Two days had passed since the rather anti-climactic fight if you could call it that with Orochimaru. Thankfully, the injuries that Tsunade had taken in the fight had all healed up and she was back to her usual self. With the woman back to normal the four Konoha shinobi acted as a group and did everything together for those two days.

Out of them all, Naruto was the one who gained the most out of this. Despite being an orphan at birth, the blonde haired boy finally got what he thought would be the closest thing possible to a familial relationship with him being the young sibling. Even though he got the occasional noogie from Tsunade, he tolerated it with a small smile on his face.

Eventually, on their trip, the walls of Konoha came into view and Naruto was giddy. He couldn't wait for his promotion to the rank of chunin so that he could start taking more missions and getting an overall better skillset as a shinobi. After all, he wanted to become the Hokage and with those lofty goals, you had to become incredibly strong to even come close to achieving them.

"I wonder what's happening with the promotions to chunin as the exams never ended." Naruto said out loud, hoping to start a conversation.

It was Tsunade who spoke up next. "Well the people in charge of handling the promotions will already have ideas on who deserve to be promoted. Once I get inaugurated as the Hokage officially I'll be able to promote you after I receive your recommendation. If they don't think that you should you're not getting promoted."

"Wait so you're not able to promote me yourself? I mean you're going to be the dictator and you can't just promote you like that?" Naruto questioned. He didn't want his promotion or lack thereof to be handled by people who could potentially deny him because of the fact that he was the Kyubi jinchuuriki.

Tsunade was never one to skirt around the issue and it showed when she replied. "In all honesty gaki, you haven't shown me enough to warrant getting promoted. Sure you have the skill that's required to be a chunin but I don't know whether or not you have the leadership and strategy skills that are necessary."

Naruto was quiet for a while and the buxom blonde wondered whether or not she had gone too far in telling Naruto the truth. "Well I guess that I'll just have to show you that I'm worthy of being a chunin." Naruto said with confidence. Let it be known that the son of Minato and Kushina Namikaze had an amazing self-belief that could pull him through the thickest of onslaughts and come out on top of it all.

Seeing this unfold in front of her eyes, Tsunade couldn't help but smile as Naruto wasn't the smartass that she had first met. He was someone that both of his parents would be proud to call their child.

It was then that Jiraiya spoke up. "You know gaki… you could just go to Kakashi and blackmail him with who your parents are and he will instantly promote you to chunin if you want."

Affronted at this, Tsunade had a glare on her face when she turned her face in the direction of the Toad Sannin. "Jiraiya!"

"What?" the dumb expression that was on his face was enough to make Tsunade even more angry even though she didn't know why.

"Don't give him ideas like that! I don't want him being promoted if he isn't ready for it!"

With an exaggerated rolling of the eyes Jiraiya responded to Tsunade's well intended but ultimately wrong view of the situation. "Both me and Kakashi were at the finals I would promote him even if he wasn't someone that I knew. As much as I hate saying it because it will inflate his ego, the kid has everything that a chunin needs. His strategies against a prodigal Hyuga were good enough that essentially rendered the boy's taijutsu completely useless. During his solo fight against the Ichibi no Shukaku Naruto was calm under pressure to the same level as you or me if we were in that situation.

Despite acknowledging the fact that Naruto was good at making strategies, there was something that was slightly more pressing. "You dumbass! How could you a genin go off and face off against one of the god damn Bijuu all by yourself!" Tsunade said as she gave her distant relative a bop on the head. Thankfully for Naruto's sake, the blonde woman didn't use any of her super strength.

"Well what was I supposed to do given that everyone else was defending the village against Otogakure and Sunagakure? I wasn't alone like Jiraiya's making it out to be. I had the help of Manda and the Kyubi.

"WHAT!" Tsunade screamed even louder this time when she heard this. There was absolutely no way that she was going to let the son of Kushina and Minato get converted into an evil blemish on society like what had happened to Orochimaru. "How the hell could you sign the Snake clan's contract? Don't you know what they have done?"

Knowing exactly what Tsunade was insinuating with that, Naruto was quick to remind her that it was not the case. "Don't blame them for what Orochimaru did. They hate him as much as you and I do. They want him permanently gone as he has tarnished their name on countless occasions. If it wasn't for them, then I would still be that blonde jumpsuit wearing kid who knew absolutely nothing about what it took to become a successful shinobi. I have them to thank for many of things so I don't want you talking bad about them behind their back!"

The amount of emphasis that Naruto spoke with was surprising for Tsunade as she definitely didn't expect to hear this from Naruto with such determination to fight for what he believed in. Still unsure about the situation, Tsunade turned in the direction of Jiraiya. "Did you know about this Jiraiya?"

The simple nod was enough for Tsunade. if Jiraiya knew about this previously and wasn't too concerned with this then he obviously knew more about the situation than she did and was going to trust his judgement. That being said, she was definitely going to grill him later on when it was just the two of them about said revelation.

After this there was an odd silence in the group until they reached the front gate of Konoha. "Halt. State your name and your purpose for visiting Konoha." The guard on duty said to which Tsunade and Jiraiya levelled him with a blank stare. Thankfully after producing ID quickly, the quartet of shinobi made their way into the heartland of the village.

With Jiraiya and Tsunade having to go to the Hokage tower to start the process of her official inauguration, Naruto left to go back to his apartment. He knew that he hadn't paid rent in a long time but he hoped that he could sort it out with his landlord. He really didn't want to be looking for a new apartment.

As it turned out, there was a note on the door of his landlord stating that he would not be back in Konoha until two days' time. After breathing a sigh of relief as it gave him time to sort things out before he returned and get the finances available, Naruto headed outside. He wanted to get his promotion!

Having thought about it since he had arrived in Konoha, Naruto knew that he would much rather prefer for his promotion to come from his sensei rather than some random person. It would be worth more in his eyes if he got the rank from someone who had seen him in the field. The only problem being that he had no idea where to find him.


	29. Now that she's back

Having just finished patching up the miniature clone of Gai and gone back to her office, her assistant came bursting into her office and shouted at her. "Tsunade-sama! You have to come quick. Kakashi just brought back Naruto from his mission and his situation is something that only you could fix!"

Thanking her assistant for the news, Tsunade rushed down to the hospital via the shunshin to the emergency ward. As per what her assistant had said, Tsunade saw Naruto lying on a wheeled stretcher. What she didn't expect to see was the copious amounts of blood that littered the floor and the top half of Naruto's body.

Her body froze upon the sight of Minato and Kushina's son lying on the brink of life and death with such a large amount of blood around him. She thought that she had gotten over her Hemophobia thanks to Jiraiya kissing her but it was not to be. Thankfully for everyone involved, Kakashi was next to the stretcher that Naruto was on top of.

"Tsunade-sama!" The normally calm man shouted with such intensity that very few people could match. "You're the only one who can heal Naruto! If you don't snap out of your fear of blood right now, you will let Kushina's son die!" In hind sight, he knew that he shouldn't of name dropped like that but he hoped that it would bring the Godaime Hokage into action.

Thankfully it did and the blonde lady ran over as fast as she could to the stretcher as fast as she could so that she could survey the damage inflicted onto Naruto Uzumaki. Taking command of the situation, Tsunade took off her necklace and put it around Naruto's neck. "I promise that you will live through this Naruto-kun." She said as she placed a featherlike kiss onto his forehead.

Getting down to business, Tsunade readied the medical chakra in her hands and started repairing the punctured lung she could see at first glance. Only time would tell just how injured the blonde haired boy was and if he actually could make it through the operation. _This is going to be a long night_ Tsunade thought to herself.

**The next day**

If it were anyone else, they would have spent a lot longer in the medically induced coma but thanks to the fact that he had the Kyubi sealed inside of him, Naruto found himself waking up. On first instinct, the blonde haired boy opened up his eyes as quickly as possible to see if there were incoming threats. The last thing he remembered was Sasuke catching him by surprise with his Chidori attack and him bringing up his sword as quickly as possible to defend himself from the attack.

Noticing that he was in a dark grey room which was different to the hospital of Konoha and yet he still had a lot of wires attached to his body made him on edge. He had no idea where he was and for all he knew, Kabuto could have come and kidnapped him and was now preparing to do all sorts of experiments on him.

The elevation in Naruto's heartbeat sent off an alarm that went straight into the Hokage's private residence allowing her to know that Naruto had woken up. Unfortunately for the Hokage, Naruto woke up a lot earlier than what she expected. This caused the alarm to go off and wake her up. Drowsily rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, Tsunade got a dressing gown out and despite the embarrassment it would cause left with haste for Naruto. That being said, she was careful to let as little people know of her clothing choices as humanly possible.

As she got into the room, she saw Naruto struggling to remove the first wire that was connected to his body. "Don't you even dare think about removing that Gaki!"

As soon as he heard the familiar sound of a voice that he recognized, Naruto let out a sigh of relief and let his head rest back on the pillow. It didn't stop him from catching the sight of what Tsunade was wearing. "That's a good look for you Tsunade-sama."

"Watch your mouth brat or I'll make your condition a whole lot worse." Tsunade grumbled before she started walking up to the boy's bedside. "I'm really glad that you made it through last night now go back to sleep because you are going to need all your strength as there are a few things that need explaining." With that said Tsunade leaned over his bedside and with his eyes opened, Naruto watched as the blonde haired lady gave him a kiss on the forehead.

The chunin shinobi was at a loss for words as he didn't like her one bit and thought that the feeling was mutual but obviously, he had just been proven completely wrong.

Before he could say anything Tsunade had left the room leaving Naruto all alone. Realising that there was nothing that he could do other than follow Tsunade's orders, Naruto proceeded to go back to sleep as he was still in a hell of a lot of pain and hopefully sleeping would drastically reduce that.

**Later**

Eight hours later and Naruto once again found himself waking up on the same day. This time though he felt much better. He could feel a smidgen of his strength returning to him compared to earlier on when he felt like he had nothing.

Using his triceps, Naruto pushed himself from a lying down position to an upright seated position. Like last time, this movement caused Naruto a severe rise heart rate and he struggled to breath just from that little movement.

It was slower this time but Tsunade did arrive into the medical facility. This time though she had two men accompanying with them being none other than Jiraiya and an ANBU commander.

The sight that made Naruto the happiest though was that Jiraiya had in his hands some snack food and a bottle of water. "How are you feeling Naruto?" Jiraiya asked with concern. As soon as he had got the messenger hawk from Shizune telling him what had happened, he had come back to Konoha in an instant to find his godson lying in a coma with his body covered in bandages. It was not a pretty sight and it was hard for him to look at.

"Horrible." Naruto was never one to sugar coat a situation if he didn't feel like he absolutely had to and now was no different.

Nodding, Jiraiya replied. "Yeah, I guess you would be feeling like shit anyway… feel free to help yourself to these." The silver haired man said as he handed the tray which had the food and opened bottle of water on it to Naruto

Seeing the food in front of him only served to make Naruto realise just how hungry he was. 20 minutes later and he was finally finished eating and Tsunade decided that now was as good as any for Naruto to answer the questions she had.

"Naruto, How much of the mission to retrieve Sasuke do you remember." The Senju woman was not only using this to help fill out a mission report but also to see if there was any memory issues for her distant relative.

Getting to business mode as much as he could given the situation, Naruto replied. "After picking Neji up so that Neji and I would rendezvous with the sand trio for the mission, we headed off at a quick pace.

They then decided on leaving one behind so that could stall some time to put some distance between us and Sasuke. I quickly got rid of him and we continued on our way." As he finished saying this Naruto saw the nods coming from the three shinobi in front of him, waiting for him to continue.

"The next time they sent people to stall for time, two people came and Kankuro from Suna offered to stay behind allowing us to pass through without wasting any time.

It was the same thing when the next person came and Temari stayed back. We kept Neji in the chasing pack for as long as possible because he was the only tracker that we had in the team. When Neji said that the only person remaining was the ninja carrying Sasuke, Neji stayed back to fight off some guy who had some form of Kekkai Genkai that shot spider webs." Judging by the expressions that were on the faces of Jiraiya and Tsunade, they knew of the clan that said bloodline came from. Naruto was at a loss as the ANBU captain had a mask covering his face.

"When Gaara and I caught up to the final person, Sasuke was nowhere near in sight but the guy placed a barrel onto the ground beside him. Then purple smoke started seeping out of the barrel and when the lid came off, Sasuke appeared. His skin was grey and his hair had grown a substantial amount. I tried to get him to turn around and come back but he did not listen and continued on to joining Orochimaru."

All three of the veteran shinobi thought the same thing. They knew that Sasuke had chosen to join Orochimaru instead of being forced into going to him.

"I went to go past the enemy shinobi but he turned out to be a member of the Kaguya clan when a bone came out of his wrist. Thankfully Gaara used his sand and allowed me to pass through. Eventually, I managed to catch up to Sasuke and I engaged him as I once again offered him the chance to come back but he denied it.

As the fight started I quickly gained the upper hand due to me using a sword and Sasuke having to use kunai to fight back. During this time Sasuke's sharingan activated to the 3 tomoe stage. The advantage that I had instantly went away.

Sasuke was the first to get angry at this and he activated his cursed seal. To combat this, I had to channel a bit of the Kyubi's chakra so that I could keep up. Sasuke tried to put some distance between us so that he could use some ninjutsu but I didn't let him. As I was chasing after him I used a one handed ninjutsu which he didn't expect and it flung him down into the sea below. The next thing I remember was that some grey thing with wings which I assume was Sasuke's cursed seal coming at with a bright a light, my ears killing me and me trying to pull my sword up as quickly as possible to defend myself.

After that, everything is blank. I don't know what happened after that." Naruto said to which the trio of shinobi thanked Naruto for giving a detailed report.

Next it was Naruto who asked the questions to Tsunade, Jiraiya and Tenzou in uniform. "So what happened next Hokage-sama if you don't mind me asking? Did Sasuke manage to get away?"

All too happy to answer them, Tsunade replied. "In your haste to bring up your sword, you also channelled some wind chakra into your blade, you cut off Sasuke's left arm from the halfway down the forearm. That however wasn't until after he plunged the chidori through your chest. Due to the momentum of your sword and the Fuuton chakra going through your blade, it sliced Sasuke's skull clean in half and went through his brain."

The moment that Tsunade finished this statement, the blonde haired boy's eyes widened in shock and alarm. He couldn't believe what he had just heard. _I-i-i killed Sasuke?_ Despite all of the arguments that the two had had in the past and the distancing the two had done… Sasuke was still the first friend that he had ever had. When all of the other kids hated him specifically, Sasuke hated everyone in general and yet Naruto knew that Sasuke respected him due to the rough childhoods that they respectively had.

He had always justified the people that he killed were people that were doing things that weren't in the best interest of Konoha. It was the same process for Naruto to come to terms with the fact that he had killed a Konoha shinobi as he knew that if Sasuke had joined Orochimaru, it spelt all kinds of trouble for Konoha.

For the first time since arriving into the room, Jiraiya spoke up. "Naruto you know since you killed Sasuke Uchiha, there is going to be a lot of animosity from the population of Konoha and it will make all of the work that you have done in trying to better your reputation will have just gone down the drain. I know, even though you stopped a traitor to the village, a lot of the civilian population to hate you." Jiraiya stated as he saw that Naruto was about to respond but cut him off as he wanted to finish what he was saying.

Hearing that made Naruto's blood boil. He had done absolutely everything in his power to make the people of Konoha support him and yet he knew that as Jiraiya had said, it would all be for nothing and it would go back to him being hated thanks to him killing their golden boy who turned traitor.

At a loss on what he was supposed to do, Naruto looked at the shinobi who he knew the longest and asked him for advice. "What do you think I should do Jiraiya-sensei?"

"Well you're lucky that I have the perfect solution for you. What you need to do is lay low for a while and let the heat die down. Also, thanks to my spy network, I know that the Akatsuki will not be moving for another three years. This means that you have three solid years where you can accompany me where I will personally train you whilst taking care of my spy network."

Going by the expression that was on the face of Tsunade, this was the first time that she was hearing about this and she was not happy at all. "Say what!? There's no way that I will let you take Naruto all on your own for three years. Who knows how many times you are going to force Naruto into strip clubs." Tsunade said, knowing that hell would freeze over before she Jiraiya be the sole role model for the son of Kushina for three years.

As he heard this, Jiraiya simply stared into the eyes of Tsunade, trying to work out what was going through her mind. "There's no other person in Konoha that could train Naruto properly to become a shinobi of the same level that Minato was at than me. Naruto is going to need all of the strength in the world if he is going to even stand a small chance against multiple S-ranked shinobi who we don't even know the identity of." Jiraiya argued. He didn't want to miss out on yet another three years of his godson's life when he had just gotten into it. The moment that he thought this, his eyes widened as he realised that Tsunade wanted him to stay for the same reason.

Trying to think of the best thing that would help her win this argument. "We have multiple Jonin that could each teach in their chosen speciality to Naruto to improve him to their level."

"Oh so who is going to is going to make sure that the seal is not weakening and can teach him to control the Kyubi?" With the two prideful personalities going at it, neither one wanted to concede defeat to the other.

"How are you going to get Naruto up to S-rank level when he will have to do missions to gain experience and you will have to look after your spy network which is a job in itself?"

"Easy, you can just send us a couple of missions that have a decent ETA and Naruto can come with me to learn about the spy network; kill two birds with one stone."

Tsunade's eyes darted to the upper right part of her eye socket as she desperately tried to think of something that would swing the argument in her favour.

Meanwhile, as all of this was happening, Naruto was content to sit back in his hospital bed and watch all of this unfold. Never before had he been able to see people who both thought that their opinion was for his benefit, argue over him.

Tenzou though who was patiently standing next to the two Sannin, was not happy to stand back. There were many important things that needed to happen in the day and this was only wasting time. "Tsunade-sama, Jiraiya-sama, I think that I might have a suggestion to end our little problem here.

What if Naruto was to accompany Jiraiya for six months so that he Naruto could be drilled into the ground with training and then come back to Konoha and join the ANBU. Even the shinobi who are strongest mentally need a break from constant training or they will burn out.

With Naruto joining the ANBU, it will provide him with the disguise so that Konoha civilians won't throw prejudice his way whilst providing a place where he can do missions and also train with some of the best classified jutsu scrolls that Konoha has to offer.

This will Give Jiraiya-san time to focus on maintaining his spy network for Konoha as well as still allowing Naruto to grow into his full potential. Jiraiya can come back for maybe once a week every two months for a week so that he can not only look at the seal but also help train Naruto." Tenzou had also seen Naruto perform at the chunin exams and was definitely on board for having yet another potentially great shinobi to add to his roster. He already got Neji so adding Naruto would be great for the manpower of the Ops teams.

Out of everything that he had heard, this suggestion from the ANBU captain was by far the best one in the opinion of Naruto Uzumaki. It was the best of both worlds as far as he was concerned. "I'd like to officially take up your offer in joining the ANBU sir." Naruto said for the first time to which both Tsunade and Jiraiya looked at him with concern.

Out of the two remaining Sannin, Tsunade was the first to give his opinion on joining the ANBU. "Naruto, you don't have to join the ANBU. Look at Jiraiya and myself in the fact that you don't need to join the corps to become a strong ninja. Konoha's strongest ninjas have actually come from outside the Special Forces.

Konoha has only had two ninjas who have gone onto the level which would be able to become a Kage in any village produced from the ANBU ranks. Those two were Itachi Uchiha and our former teammate Orochimaru."

"What about Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto asked as he thought that his sensei was someone who was renowned for the ANBU.

It was Jiraiya who took over from here given that he knew Kakashi better than Tsunade. "Kakashi isn't in the same category as the two who Tsunade just mentioned kid. He isn't even in the top ten of strongest ninja that Konoha has produced and that's not including the Shodaime and Nidaime Hokage. The difference is that he spent more time than what both those two combined spent in the ANBU so he is more respected in a sense but Itachi and Orochimaru are more feared by enemy shinobi."

After hearing this explanation, Naruto nodded his head and was in thought for a moment. "Jiraiya-sensei, what's your opinion on me joining the ANBU?"

"Honestly, I think you could achieve just as much and be just as prepared for the Akatsuki when the time comes if you did it outside of the ANBU. In my opinion there are more drawbacks than positives for joining. There is also a Minimum Period of Service so even if you want to go back to being a regular shinobi you can't and make no mistake, there will be times that you will want to quit. That being said, if this is what you want to do, then I will support you all the way."

Hearing that from his sensei meant a lot to him. His eyes were shining with tears almost threatening to come out as he never had anyone in his life that was willing to do that for him. "Thank you Jiraiya-sensei." Naruto said before turning to the ANBU who was standing beside Tsunade. Meanwhile, as this was going on, Tsunade was giving a harsh glare to Jiraiya. It was obvious that she did not want Naruto to join the ANBU but she was not going to pull rank because she knew that Naruto would dislike her even more.

"ANBU-san, I'd like to officially accept your offer and join the Special Forces."

"Well then Naruto, I'd like to welcome you on board but that will have to wait six months until you come back for me to officially welcome you to the team." After he finished saying this, Tenzou immediately used the shunshin as he had other matters to attend to.

The same could be said about the Hokage. "Well now that that has been decided, I have to go endure the approaching shit storm that is going to be coming once word spreads of the death of the Uchiha. Oh and if you try and leave before I let you, I will make your life so bad that it is not worth living." Tsunade said in a warning tone of voice to Naruto who gulped down the saliva that was in his mouth.

"You should do what she says gaki. Since she is a medic, she knows all different functions of the human body and how to manipulate them." Jiraiya stated thanks to firsthand experience before continuing on.

"Despite being such a nice guy, even I, the great Jiraiya am not willing to spend time here waiting for you to get better when there is research to be done. Here take this, think of it as your homework." Jiraiya said, chucking a scroll that he pulled out from his pocket to his godson. Making sure that Naruto caught it, the silver haired man went off to do some very important field research.

Opening up the scroll that Jiraiya sent him, Naruto noticed that it was a book on fuinjutsu. He couldn't help but grin as it was something that allowed him to feel closer to his parents.

**The next morning**

Due to being so engrossed into the book that he was reading the night before, the time passed by much quicker than he thought it would. It actually came as a surprise when the respective nurse on duty came in with a tray of food on it.

As soon as the onset tiredness started coming on, Naruto went to bed and tried to sleep for as long as possible, hoping to carve off a lot of the time he had to spend in the hospital.

It was just his luck that he woke up with another food and drinks tray with fresh food on his bedside table. After finishing the food, Naruto was just about to go back to reading the same book from last night when his godfather appeared in the room thanks to the same jutsu he had left in the previous day.

"'You've been given the all clear brat so get up, put these clothes on and get ready for the training trip of a life time!" Jiraiya said with obvious excitement on his face to which Naruto could only mirror.

He was happy to get out of the damn hospital and see the bright blue skies with the sun bearing down on his back. Kicking his sensei out of the room, Naruto quickly got changed into the clothes that Jiraiya had provided for him and allowed him to return into the room.

"Alright Gaki, I've just got a few things to say to 'Nade before we go so go back to your apartment, seal absolutely everything you own into these scrolls as when you come back to Konoha, I'll find you a much better apartment than your previous one.

Nodding to his sensei and accepting the scrolls, Naruto and Jiraiya walked out of the hospital and quickly made their way to where they needed to go via the roofs of the buildings.

Making a quick stop off at the betting agency, Naruto went in to quickly cash in the bet that he previously made on the chunin exams. Thankfully, on the ticket, it said that there was a three month period in which you could claim your winnings. As it was only one and half months in, Naruto was well within his rights to go and claim the money.

Leaving the building 15 minutes later after having to use killing intent to threaten the clerks who were unwilling to hand the money over to him, Naruto walked out of the place with enough money to live comfortably for 4 years without doing any form of work whatsoever.

**At the gates**

Upon meeting with his sensei, Naruto couldn't but notice the red lipstick smeared across the face of his sensei. After having witnessed what had happened at the fight with Orochimaru, Naruto didn't bother commenting on it although there was a grin on his face.

Jiraiya for his part wore the markings with pride rather than embarrassment and didn't bother washing them off. Seeing the smirk on the face of his godson, Jiraiya couldn't help but speak up. Said action was enough to stop Naruto dead in his tracks.

"Oh I can't wait to abuse the healing power the Kyubi provides you gaki in training. This means I can train you harder knowing that whatever I throw at you will just get healed by the time of the next training session."

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Notes:<strong>

**In all honesty, I knew writing the Naruto - Sasuke fight would have been something that I would really not want to write once i got up to it so much so i would put off writing it. I know it was anti climactic but this provides me the chance of finally getting to the actual part of the story.**

**As far as I am concerned, everything up until the next chapter can be considered a prologue and the real story starts here.**


	30. In the atmosphere

The past few days had been tough on the pink haired girl. When she had first heard that one of her teammates had died on the mission to retrieve Sasuke, Sakura felt really bad that Naruto had died. It certainly didn't help that the last meeting that she had with her former teammate, she had said some pretty nasty things in the defence of her precious Sasuke-kun.

The one thing that prevented the girl from breaking down and crying was the fact that Naruto had been just as nasty as her.

As bad as it was for her to think it, Sakura hoped that the death of Naruto would be the catalyst for Sasuke-kun and herself to get closer together and possibly even become girlfriend and boyfriend.

Thus when she went to the hospital to find out which room her Sasuke-kun was staying in, she found out that Sasuke was not staying in any room at the hospital. Admittedly she was surprised at this because she thought that Naruto would have done a significant amount of damage to her Sasuke-kun because she had seen Naruto improving over time.

To find out that there hadn't even been enough damage to warrant a trip to the hospital should have been the girl's first clue. The second clue should have been that when she went to the Uchiha clan district, she found out that the whole entire complex was locked with both deadbolts and some seals which she had no idea about.

Two days had passed from when she found out that Naruto had died when she went looking for Kakashi. It was only at that point that Sakura realised just how little she knew of her sensei as she had no idea where to start looking for the man.

It was only by pure luck that she managed to find him at the Hokage tower and questioned him on where her Sasuke-kun was. Sakura didn't know why it was so hard for her sensei to say that "He's not here." At the time she should have realised that it meant more than just that her Sasuke-kun was not at the Hokage tower.

When she heard the "he's not coming back" line from her sensei Sakura thought it meant that Sasuke hadn't come to his senses in realising that joining Orochimaru was bad especially so since she was waiting back here in Konoha for him.

After coming to terms with the fact that Sasuke was not coming back, Sakura asked when they would be going to rescue him from the snake Sannin and bring him back to his home where she could be with him.

Seeing the sigh come from her sensei, the pink haired girl had a bad feeling growing inside of her stomach. The genin knew that what her sensei was going to tell her was something that she did not want to here.

Indeed it was as she learnt that it was not Naruto who had died on the retrieval mission. It was actually in fact her Sasuke-kun.

Kakashi looked around awkwardly as he didn't know what to do in this situation. He had never been taught how to help teenage girls who were going through the grieving process.

Fortunately for the shinobi career of Kakashi left after informing her that he had to prepare for a mission. Had he been around to hear her develop psychosis and mutter about how Naruto had to pay for permanently putting her Sasuke-kun to sleep, she would have been sent to the hospital medical illness check.

Getting up from her position of crying in the middle of the street, the pink haired girl vowed to herself that she would avenge her husband in waiting. She knew that she couldn't do that right away as there far too much of a skill gap between herself and Naruto was too much. That was why she needed to train hard and improve herself as a shinobi so she could kill Naruto.

**With Orochimaru**

Kabuto was shaking. He honestly had absolutely no idea how he was going to tell his master what had happened at the valley of the end and yet still be able to live and tell the tale.

Knocking on the door of his bed ridden master, Kabuto waited until he had the all clear before entering the room. "Ahh Kabuto-kun. Tell me how young Sasuke-kun's defection went. I haven't heard anything about his arrival."

It was time for the silver haired man to grow some balls and tell the truth. "Actually Orochimaru-sama" even as he said this, Kabuto bowed so as not to anger the man even though he was very weak at the moment. "All members of the sound four as well as Kimimaro died."

Perplexed as he knew that Konoha would only be able to spare genin, he wondered who they had at their disposal to take on all five of his ninjas. From his time as the Kazekage and overseeing the matches of the chunin exams, they only had two decent genin shinobies in their ranks.

"From the mission report that was going around, I managed that Naruto Uzumaki and Neji Hyuga were aided by the help of the former Kazekage's children." Kabuto said after having heard the question of his master.

When he heard this, Orochimaru despite all of the bandages that covered his body still managed to shrug his shoulders. "That matters little, Kimimaro was the only one of them that had any promise but unfortunately he suffered from that disease. The rest of them were all disposable anyway; now tell me about Sasuke-kun."

The pride of Kabuto Yakushi as a medical ninja was annoyed at the fact that despite his high levels of skill in the medical arts, he couldn't cure Kimimaro. Ignoring that for now, Kabuto steeled himself.

"Sasuke-kun did not make it Orochimaru-sama."

The façade of indifference finally cracked as the snake Sannin had a look of fury on his face. The long haired man demanded his subordinate to tell him everything to which Kabuto did.

"Naruto Uzumaki-san managed to catch up to Sasuke and they fought at the valley of the end. I don't know what happened got there, I found during their fight but when I got there, I found Naruto and Sasuke both lying on the ground.

I could sense Kakashi coming and I didn't know who else was with him so I made a decision to take Sasuke-kun's body and leave."

Seeing his master nod, Kabuto felt slightly relieved that his master hadn't berated for not taking the Kyubi jinchuuriki when he had the chance. "When I got to their bodies I noticed that Sasuke-kun had been cut with a sword through both eyes and into the frontal lobe of his brain. He was already dead before I even got there."

Kabuto was not surprised one bit when he felt the unbridled rage that came through the killing intent that was produced. It was the worst form of killing intent that he had ever felt in his life and he would rather be in the most horrific prison cell that Konoha had to offer than where he was right now.

If there was one thing that Orochimaru was praised for above all else, it was his ability to keep calm in all situations. "THAT LITTLE CUNT!" he shouted out which shocked Kabuto. It was the first time that he had ever heard his master swear.

_Thank fuck he is injured so he can't take his frustrations out on me. I better say everything now before he recovers. _"The damage done to Sasuke's eyes was too great and they would have not worked if I took them out and implanted them into someone else."

All Orochimaru could do was rage at the hand that he was dealt. Everything was not going according to plan. "What about the Kyubi boy, did you kill him?"

There were a few beads of sweat that fell down the side of the face of Kabuto. "No I didn't sir. I felt that it was more prudent to extract some semen from Sasuke-kun for artificial insemination, that way you at least can get a guaranteed sharingan in the future Orochimaru. I didn't have time to do both as Kakashi was rapidly approaching."

Grinding his teeth together, Orochimaru was not impressed. The Kyubi brat had ruined all of his plans and he was being taught by Manda of all people… "I want the Kyubi jinchuuriki listed in the bingo book as a low A-ranked ninja and a 4 million dollar bounty dead and a 10 million alive." Orochimaru said and after that he took a long breath.

"Now Kabuto-kun, help me use the jutsu to get into my new body and then get started on the insemination process." Orochimaru ordered his subordinate. Kabuto for his part was just thankful that he was still alive and got up to do what he was told.

**With Sakura**

You would think that being at a funeral there would be a grace period of at least the service that you're not allowed to hear any more bad news. That was not to be though as when she had asked her sensei Kakashi for some proper training into making her into a great shinobi, she received an answer that she didn't like.

That was that because of the joint invasion, Konoha was down on manpower and they couldn't afford to waste someone as powerful as Kakashi teaching a defunct genin team that only had one member.

The paperwork had been put through for the disbandment of Team Seven. Now Sakura would be put into the sensei-less genin pool for missions and she would also have to find her own means for training. Sakura hated this as she felt as if the one time that she actually needed her sensei, he had let her down.

Watching over the plight that the pink haired girl was going through was Anko Mitarashi. Jumping down from her perch where she was watching over the girl talking to her sensei, Anko walked up to the girl.

"Well hello there Pinky, I overheard that you're in a bit of a tight situation."

**With Itachi**

The second that the astral projection in which The Akatsuki used to converse with one another was done; tears started freely falling down his face. Thankfully Kisame was not with him as the two had scheduled a break for a while before their next mission.

_Sasuke-kun…_ Itachi thought to himself as all he could do at that point was look down at the ground and cry. It was the first time that he had cried since the Uchiha massacre.

**With Naruto**

_Jiraiya-sensei wasn't kidding when he said that training would be horrendous!_ Naruto thought to himself as he struggled to walk to his bedroom. Out of all of the skills that Jiraiya possessed in his arsenal, the one where he could seal an entire house into a scroll so that they could take it with them was his favourite.

He was in so much muscular pain that Naruto did not have the strength to slowly lower himself on his bed. Instead he just let gravity take him to where he needed to be.

It was only one month into leaving Konoha and training with Jiraiya and yet considering the rate that he was making progress before the trip to the Snake clan, it was as if he had been training for three years straight.

Where most shinobi would have a rest day after a few days of intense training, Naruto did not have that luxury. Thanks to the Kyubi, every single muscle fibre that was torn in training healed up just little bit stronger than before.

Thankfully for the sake of the blonde haired boy, that was at the end of the day. If he had to do such a strenuous training regime at the start of the day and then follow that up with everything else that he did, well he knew that he would get nowhere as good results.

_Sensei always said that the difference between a good shinobi and a great shinobi was having no exploitable weaknesses. I guess that's why I've been getting drilled so much in chakra control recently. _Naruto was the first to admit to himself and those that were close to him that his chakra control was horrendous. Sure it had improved by leaps and bounds in the near recent past but it was nothing to be proud of. The amount of jutsus that he was capable of learning was limited in the sense that he could only learn jutsus where chakra control didn't necessarily matter. Of course chakra control helped every jutsu but there were some that this was more relevant for.

In came the rasengan. It was the jutsu that killed two birds with one stone. The blonde haired boy didn't have any form of close ranged jutsu just in case someone knocked his sword out of his hand. This including the fact that it required a significant amount of chakra control to maintain the multiple rings of chakra permanently spinning in a tightly woven together sphere.

The fact that his father was the person to create the jutsu allowing the orphan to have another connection to his parents was completely coincidental.

The first step was fairly hard for Naruto to grasp the concept of and it was only until Jiraiya and himself walked through a village and saw some kids playing with an oddly shaped ball which bounced in different directions all the time that he got what he was supposed to do with the rasengan.

The second step was much easier for Naruto. Naruto didn't get it first go because he wasn't able to call up his the amount of power required fast enough. It was a slow build up compared to the instantaneous way the rasengan required.

The hard part was the final test though. He had managed to figure out to the jutsu with the use of shadow clones but he felt that that was a cop out and there would be situations where he wouldn't have the time to be able to produce a shadow clone to help him out.

Thanks to the help that Jiraiya and the balloons that he gave him to help him learn the jutsu, Naruto learnt it quicker than the 3 months that it took Jiraiya. Jiraiya was so impressed the day when he found out that his godson had learnt the jutsu in two weeks that they went out for dinner that night to the fanciest restaurant in town.

As he was in bed eating the lunch mid-morning portion of his high calorie diet, Naruto shook his head to push his blonde hair out of his eyes. When he told Jiraiya about it, he planned on going to a hairdresser and getting it trimmed but his sensei told him not and all that he would say further on the issue was that he had a plan.

Naruto that long hair was a sign of power but he honestly didn't think he was at a level where he could have long hair and not have people look down upon him. He wasn't at the level of Orochimaru or Jiraiya and he certainly wasn't anywhere near close to Hashirama and Madara's level of skill. Long hair was a way of showing to your opponent that you're so powerful that it can't be used against you and he didn't think he was just there yet.

_Oh well, sensei's been good for me so far, I'll trust him and see where this goes._

Little did Naruto know that the ability to produce long, lustrous hair was a sign of natural sexual selection over the years. This was something that Jiraiya was banking on as he wanted to indoctrinate Naruto into thinking about women and sex.

Getting back to eating, Naruto reached to the bedside table and pulled a book out of the first drawer. It was called The Game: Penetrating the secret society of pickup artists.

On first sight of the title, Naruto instantly refused to read the book but on the insistence of his sensei, he finally caved into peer pressure and started reading it. It was old; it was a book that Jiraiya read as a child and despite the title, there were actually no graphic mentions of the nasty.

Ignoring most of the parts on picking up women, Naruto focused on the self-improvement parts of the book. If there was one thing that Naruto learnt from this and that Jiraiya reinforced, it was don't put the pussy on a pedestal.

The whole point of the book was to point out that treating women better than you treat yourself will make them think that they are better than you. If they think that they are better than you then why would they settle for you? Just because you're a nice guy doesn't mean that they will go out with you. Why would they want to have sex with you when they can be with someone more exciting when they know that if things don't work out they can always come back to you and you will tell them that the other guy was an arsehole for treating you not like the princess that you are?

"Oi gaki! Come down here now, breaks over." Jiraiya shouted out from downstairs and Naruto cursed. He didn't realised so much time had passed and got out of the bed; legs wobbled but Naruto barely managed to keep his balance and not fall flat on his face when getting up.

If he thought that that was bad then he was in for a real treat when it came to going down the stairs. He was in so little control when it came to balance thanks to his muscles being completely useless that he fell over when he was going down the stairs. "Owww…" Naruto muttered as thankfully it was on the third last step that he lost his balance and not the first stair.

"Stop complaining brat!" Jiraiya said with a grin on his face as he stared down at his godson eating the timber flooring. "It's good character building."

Naruto couldn't even be bothered to throw an insult back at his sensei so he just got up and headed over to the table where there were multiple books on military strategy and history.

**One week later**

Due to the nature of his godfather's work, Naruto now found himself in the land of grass. Thanks to the fact that Jiraiya also had to look after his spy network whilst he was getting trained, Naruto had to find something to occupy his time. Normally he would solve this by training but even Naruto, the kid who trained all day everyday had become bored of it and wanted to do something else.

Walking away from the house that Naruto and Jiraiya had shared and went into town.

Initially when he heard that he was going to be going to land of grass, Naruto got giddy. The girl that he had a crush on lived in the main village of the nation and he hoped that they would get the chance of going into the place but that hope was crushed by Jiraiya.

Naruto wondered whether or not they would have gone had he told his godfather that the girl who he lost his virginity to also happened to live in Kusagakure.

As he was idly walking down the street, Naruto saw a food stand and decided to get something. Thanking the woman behind the counter as put his wallet back in his pocket, Naruto headed off down the road to see if there was anything that he could do take his interest.

What the chunin didn't know was that there was someone watching him.

Said person watching could tell just from the way he dressed, he was from out of town. _That's good, that'll make this more worthwhile since he's probably carrying a lot of cash _she thought to herself as she observed her target.

Sneaking up on him as best as she could; the woman used her special ability to check out her target. Boy was she in for a surprise. The fear appeared on her face as she scoped out her prey morphed into absolute delight. Sprinting as fast as she could, at the last second the woman launched herself at her prey.

Naruto, having only heard the noise at the last second barely had enough time to turn around and see what was going on before he was tackled into the ground slamming his head on the dirt below.

On instinct, Naruto reached for his kunai pouch ready to slit the throat of his attacker. "Naruto-kun!" A distinctively female voice shouted from above him. Wondering who it was that knew him all the way out here in Kusagakure,

Naruto looked up and was in for a great surprise as sitting on top of his lap was some really cute red headed girl with red eyes that were framed by a pair of glasses. _There's only one girl that I know who looks like that! _"Karin-chan!" Naruto said with a big smile on his face. Using his abdominal muscles Naruto bent up and wrapped his arms around Karin and gave her a hug.

Eagerly returning the gesture, Karin was happy that for all of the bad things that happened in her life recently, seeing Naruto was the greatest thing she could have asked for. Opening her eyes, Karin noticed that everyone in the street were now staring at the duo. Blushing in embarrassment, Karin quickly got up off of Naruto and helped him up also.

Seeing the blushing and the discomfort on the girl's face, Naruto made a suggestion. "How about we get out of here?"

The nod was all that he needed and Naruto interlocked his fingers with Karin's and purposefully headed off in the direction of his sensei's home. If he had turned back he would have seen the blushing face of the red haired girl.

"What do you think you're doing Naruto-kun? You can't just go into someone's house." Karin said wondering what had gotten over her friend.

"Don't worry Karin-chan, this is my sensei's house." Naruto said as he walked into the house lightly dragging Karin into the house.

"Do you want anything to drink Karin-chan?"

"Umm water thanks Naruto-kun." Karin said with a small, forced smile on her face as she was a bit uncomfortable being in a house of a man that she knew nothing about.

"Okay Karin-chan." Naruto replied as he went to go and get some drinks.

Feeling a bit awkward, the red haired girl sat down on the couch and waited for Naruto. When he came back with smile on her face, she knew that her life was going to be a lot better with him in it.

There was a bit of silence before Naruto spoke up. "So Karin-chan, how has it been for you since the chunin exams?" the blonde haired boy asked, careful not to mention what exactly happened at the chunin exams. He didn't know whether or not she was pissed about him not meeting up with her after the second round.

There were many things that Naruto expected with the most prominent to be Karin getting that smile on her face where her eyes lit up in happiness. What he did not expect was for her to break down and start crying.

Not wanting to see someone that he cared about crying, Naruto reached over and tightly hugged the girl. Instantly, when she felt the contact, Karin latched onto it and hugged Naruto just as hard.

It was at this point in time with his head so close to the hair that he thought looked beautiful, Naruto noticed that Karin smelt pretty bad.

For five minutes, Karin continued to cry before she finally managed to regain her composure. "What's wrong Karin-chan?" Naruto questioned with concern lacing every single one of the words coming out of his mouth.

"Life back in Kusagakure hasn't been sunshine and rainbows Naruto-kun. "The people back in charge at Kusagakure sent my dad on a mission to be the bodyguard for an underground sex slave trafficking business." Karin said before she got the sniffles and wiped her nose.

"Daddy didn't want to do this and he asked to respectfully decline the mission." _The only thing that that did was make the situation worse _Naruto thought to himself as he heard Karin.

"They gave him three choices, he could go on a suicide mission or he could kill himself." The moment that Karin uttered these words she started sobbing again. Despite her state, Karin was eternally grateful for the fact that Naruto hadn't let go of her once.

The only thing that was keeping her from not breaking down like she had for the past two months was Naruto's chakra. The red haired girl felt all warm and safe and it wasn't the arms around her doing that; it was the chakra of Naruto although she noted that it was much calmer and didn't have the agitation that he had last time she met him.

"Daddy accepted the suicide mission because he wasn't willing to help out a sex trade business and he came home straight away. He withdrawed all of the money that he had saved up, gave it all to me and told me to back all of my things. He told me what they forced him to choose and I agreed with him. I don't want to live in a place that supports that."

Naruto kept his opinion to himself. He didn't want to tell Karin that because of the fact that Kusa was not in a position of power, they had to accept any mission that was sent their way. They simply didn't have the choice in refusing a mission because it would greatly affect their economy.

"It's okay Karin-chan; it's going to get better as time passes by." Naruto said as he kissed the forehead of the girl in his arms. Said female blushed so that her face was as red as her face. She didn't know what to say in response so she didn't say anything at all. Instead of that, Karin simply pressed her head on the chest of Naruto and held him tight.

Looking down at her face pressed against his chest, Naruto smiled and had a brilliant idea. "Karin-chan, you remember how before we said that if we didn't live in different villages; we would be boyfriend and girlfriend?"

Instead of looking up with her eyes lighting up her face like he had hoped, Karin's head didn't move although she did start playing with his kimono top. "But I'm a missing nin of Kusa, your Hokage won't allow me to join your village Naruto-kun."

Naruto laughed.

Angry at his reaction, Karin looked up at him.

_She's cute when she's angry. _"If you told Hokage-sama what you told me, you wouldn't have a choice, she would kidnap you and five minutes later you would have a job at the Konoha hospital."

That frown and anger turned into a smile. _She's cute when she's surprised. _"Yeah, it also kind of helps that she is my auntie."

"What! The Hokage is your auntie!?" Karin shrieked in shock at what she had just heard.

"Yeah, we had a bit of a rough start but now we get along well together."

Beaming up with a smile that was about to rip her cheeks apart it was that wide. _She's cute when she smiles. _"I'm so happy for you Naruto-kun. When you came to Kusa you told me you were an orphan so I'm really happy that you have family that's alive." Karin said and she reinforced this by boldly kissing Naruto on the lips.

"Thank you Karin-chan, you don't know how much that means to me." Naruto said with a smile on his face that replicated the one that Karin was giving him.

This was the scene that Jiraiya came home to.

"Wow, you sure know how to pick'em gaki." Jiraiya said as he noticed the vibrant red hair on the girl."

Surprised, Naruto backed off from Karin. "Jiraiya-sensei, what are you doing here?" Naruto questioned with a bit of annoyance.

"Looks like I'm accidentally cock blocking you gaki." Jiraiya said with a big grin on his face. Karin for her part was a little bit intimidated by the old man in front of her.

Feeling the hand of Karin squeezing his own, Naruto spoke up. "Jiraiya-sensei, this is Karin-chan; Karin chan, this is Jiraiya-sensei, despite how tough he tries to act, he's really just a big softie."

"Oi gaki, you're supposed to make your sensei look good not bad." Jiraiya said with an over exaggerated look of annoyance on his face. Karin for her part just giggled at the antics between teacher and student.

"Uhh Karin-chan, can you please go and have a shower, Jiraiya-sensei and I have some things that we need to talk about."

Getting the message, Karin got up and headed towards where the toilet was and hoped that she could find the bathroom. All Jiraiya could do was watch with a raised eyebrow. He wondered what the hell was going on.

And then Naruto proceeded to tell his godfather everything about the situation that Karin was in. Out of everything that he got told there was only one thing that Jiraiya cared about.

"So you lost your V-plates beside a dead animal carcass in the forest of death! Gaki that is some freaky shit and I couldn't be any prouder of you."

When it was said like that, Naruto realised how bad it actually was. "Shut up sensei…" Naruto said with a blush on his face.

It was at this time that Karin came back out from the shower and Naruto couldn't help but stare at the girl with a smile on his face. _Where have I seen this before? _Jiraiya thought to himself as he watched his student look at the red haired girl.

"Alright, I'm gonna go and get lunch for all of us. In the meantime gaki, you can tell your girlfriend what she's in for. If she's tagging along with us then she's getting trained just as harsh as what you do." Jiraiya stated and in a split second, he vanished.

"How difficult is training Naruto-kun?" Karin said with nervousness appearing on her face. She knew she wasn't really a fighter and hoped that she could handle it; she really didn't want to disappoint Naruto.

"From what I have learnt, it's the hardest training that I have ever done but if you give it you're all, the results will be more than worth the effort that you put in." Naruto said to which Karin gulped but nodded. She wanted to prove to Naruto that she could do this so she tried to hide as much of her fear as possible.

Tapping the seat beside him, Naruto motioned for the red haired girl to sit next to him. She did and there was a small blush on her face as she sat so close to her crush.

Grabbing the girl's hands and holding them in his own, Naruto spoke up. "Since we're going to be seeing each other a lot more often, there's something that you should know about me." Naruto said to which Karin nodded and patiently waited for him to continue.

"Karin-chan, what do you know about the Kyubi attack on Konoha 13 years ago?" Naruto questioned and unintentionally squeezed the hands of Karin.

Normally, to use her sensory ability, Karin had to use hand seals but thanks to the fact that she was so close to Naruto, she didn't need them to feel the emotions coming off of his chakra. She wondered why Naruto was so nervous and scared.

Not wanting him to feel like that, especially when she was around, the red eyed girl gave Naruto a hug.

"What was that for?" The blonde haired boy asked curiously.

"I can sense the emotions your feeling from your chakra Naruto-kun. I never want you to feel as if you're nervous or scared, especially when you're with me." Karin said with a smile marring her face as she looked into the eyes of her blonde haired friend.

"Anyway, back to what you asked before, umm, I don't know much at all apart from the fact that your Yondaime Hokage killed it at the cost of his own life." Karin replied, wondering what this had to do with Naruto.

Naruto took a breath before speaking. "The Kyubi and other chakra demons can't be killed, well they can but the chakra remains around in the area and in a few years or so it reform once again."

"But there has never been any news of it reforming…" Karin said out loud as she realised that something was amiss here.

"The only way to properly prevent a Bijuu from reappearing is to seal it off."

"So the Yondaime Hokage used a sealing jutsu to seal the demon away, but what does that have to do with you Naruto-kun?" In hindsight, the former Kusagakure ninja should have realised here what Naruto was going to say.

Naruto took a deep breath to try and best calm his nerves for what he was about to say. "Due to the high amount of chakra, they couldn't seal the demon in something like a scroll. They had to use a human and since sealing it inside an adult would cause the chakra coils to blow up, they had to seal it a newborn baby which still had their chakra coils developing."

It took two seconds to figure out what Naruto was trying to say and once she realised that he was the kid who got the Kyubi sealed inside of; Karin launched herself at Naruto with her arms wide.

"So when you said that you had a hard time growing up all of that was because of the Kyubi right?" Karin questioned as she leant back from the hug that she was giving Naruto.

"Yes… But I don't want your pity." Naruto said and for the first time ever, he got angry at Karin. He didn't intentionally mean to direct it at her, it was just that he had the fear of every one of the people his own age would pity him.

"No-no-no-no, you've got it all wrong Naruto-kun." Karin said in panic. She didn't want to lose her best friend.

As she saw Naruto look up at with confusion and hope, she continued on. "I don't pity you Naruto-kun, I could never do that. I'm really proud of you for being able to stand up to all of that adversity and still become such a great person."

Tears started falling down the face of Naruto as he was overwhelmed with emotion. "Thank you Karin-chan, you don't know how much this means to me." Naruto said before grabbing the red haired girl and hugged her tightly.

If she was honest with herself, it hurt a little bit but the fact that it was Naruto who was hugging her, it made it worth it. The hug lasted for five minutes and when Naruto released it, he stared into the red eyes of Karin before kissing her.

Karin for her part was shocked but quickly responded by moving her lips in combination with Naruto's. Biting on the lower lip lightly, Naruto gently pulled it down.

Getting the message that Naruto was sending her, Karin opened her mouth and allowed for his tongue to enter. As she did this, Karin also placed her hands on the back of Naruto's head and started massaging his scalp with her fingernails.

Placing his hands on her jawline, Naruto pushed his tongue inside Karin's mouth and started playing with it. The blonde haired boy's hands only remained stationary as they went up to Karin's vibrant red hair and started stroking her hair before moving down to her neck. Throughout this time, Naruto never once "grabbed" at her, instead he lightly caressed her with an open palm and judging by the moans that he was receiving, he must have been doing something right.

Naruto was not the only one whose hands were moving around. Karin had moved her hands from Naruto's hair and placed them on his back. Her hands changed from light grazing with her fingernails to massaging Naruto's back.

Said boy flexed his back muscles as it was a stroke to his ego to know that Karin liked his muscular back due to the movements becoming a lot more frantic.

Unfortunately for the duo, the kiss had to come to an end. "Wait a sec Naruto-kun, let me use my sensor jutsu to see how close your sensei is. I don't want him returning to see us doing anything naughty." _Wow she's so cute when her nose twitches and makes her glasses move up and down._

Nodding, Naruto waited for Karin to say that they could go back to kissing because he really liked doing that. When the red haired girl in his arms gasped, Naruto knew that that was not going to happen.

"Quick, we have to straighten our clothes cause your sensei is just about here…" As she finished what she was saying, Jiraiya appeared in the room thanks to the usage of the shunshin.

"Ohhh, well what do we have here. I bet if I had been gone any longer you two would be doing the nasty when I got home." Jiraiya said with a massive grin on his face.

Both of them were blushing but it was Naruto who managed to gain his composure first. "Shut up Jiraiya-sensei… just give us the food." Naruto said with a scowl on his face in the hopes that it would cover up his embarrassment.

All the silver haired man did in response was laugh.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

**I have used dollars previously as the currency as it makes it easier when it comes to valuing something so I will continue to use them for bingo book bounties.**

**Also, if you have any ideas on what you think would be good progression for the character of Itachi, I would like to hear them. At the moment I don't have a clear idea of what I want to do with his character considering the death of Sasuke will make him an important part.**


	31. I'm afraid that she

**Author's note:**

**I know that this chapter is a shorter than normal but expect chapters to be around the six to eight thousand word mark so I don't clog up chapters with unnecessary information.**

* * *

><p>One month into life as a future Konoha Shinobi and the girlfriend of one Naruto Uzumaki and life couldn't be better. She couldn't believe how much her life had changed since she reunited the blonde haired boy.<p>

Naruto was truly a life saver because she had absolutely no idea what life could have been like for her had she not ran into Naruto and joined him. She probably would have been scraping around for some work in a medical clinic or trying to steal some money like she pathetically attempted to do to Naruto before she realised who he was.

Instead of what could have been an underachieving and disappointing life for Karin in which she could have easily found herself in some unpleasant situations, she was now training with one of the strongest ninjas that Konoha had ever produced.

It was more than the training though as the red haired girl preferred the companionship and the stable environment more than anything else. She was there with her sensei and her new boyfriend who both cared about her. For the first time since her graduation to the rank of genin, Karin felt happy.

She had a goal that she wanted to achieve after hearing the upbringing that Naruto had and both he and Jiraiya were 100% supportive in helping her achieving that. that and being around people who helped build her confidence levels rather than try and destroy them made all the difference in the world and the geeky red haired now had a constant smile on her face whenever she wasn't training.

When she was training, she had a look of determination on her face as Karin gave it her all to get the most out of each and every single training session so that she didn't disappoint those around her. She didn't want them to think that the effort that they put into her was wasted. Oh and she also wanted to look better for her Naruto-kun thanks to the conversation that she had with Jiraiya-sensei which admittedly was really awkward.

**Flashback**

"_Karin-chan, what's wrong?"_

"_Well it's just won't Naruto-kun think I'm not as attractive if I keep eating heaps of food?" Karin questioned whilst she was playing with her red, upper neck level hair which she had decided not to cut. It was easy to tell that he_

"_Don't worry about that Karin-chan; Naruto isn't the type of kid who would get with a girl just because of her looks. In fact looks are the thing that he cares for the least. Naruto would much rather prefer a fat girl who had a great personality than a hot girl who he can't stand to be around." Jiraiya said as he sat down on the couch beside Karin and gave her a hug._

_As she leant into the chest of Jiraiya, Karin replied. "Thanks sensei, that means a lot to me but from a purely attraction point, does me gaining some muscle and going a dress size or two make me look not as good?" Karin questioned to her sensei. Just from the time spent with the man, Karin knew that he was good with women but when he was around her he toned it a lot acted like a proper father figure. _

"_Alright you asked for it Red, you just made Jiraiya-sensei go into lecture mode." Karin giggled when she heard this. The nickname that Jiraiya gave her was one that only he was allowed to use; it was like a father daughter bonding thing._

"_For the human body to grow, you need to consume more calories than the amount that you use throughout the day. This is especially true for you Karin since you're not yet an adult." Karin nodded at this and waited for her sensei to continue._

"_In terms of pure looks, that's subjective. Every single guy has a different opinion on what they deem as the sexiest possible physique for a woman to have. Some men get turned on by women who are obese. Some men get turned on by girls who are borderline anorexic and only have twigs for bones."_

_With a blush on her face and a look of nervousness on her face, Karin cut off her sensei with a question. "What about you sensei…? What do you your dream girl to look like?"_

_On instinct, the mind of Jiraiya went to Tsunade and he started listing off all of her features. "Girls who are nothing but skin and bones are alright but every girl tries to look like that so they're nothing special._

_For a woman to truly stand out, she needs to have a fair bit of muscle on her. She needs to squat heavy weights as that will build up the muscles in their arse which gives them that bubble but, do push ups and dips to build up the chest muscles and train her flexibility. Oh and she also has to have stamina so that she doesn't just cake it after two seconds."_

_Karin nodded and realised that she didn't want to have a disproportioned body; she would have to work out all muscle groups._

"_Oh and guys don't care about your actual size unless you're like an amazon, really, they only want the only part of your body that jiggles is your boobs."_

**Flashback end**

Karin was grateful that the house which Jiraiya had sealed (Something she didn't think was possible when she first joined them) had enough rooms so that she and Naruto didn't sleep in the same bed; it made it that much more special when either one of them snuck into the other's room.

As per the reason as to why they had to stay in separate rooms, well that was because Jiraiya didn't want a kid to accidentally manifest itself inside the womb of Karin. That and Jiraiya also didn't want the two's relationship to become too dull and boring too quickly by spending so much time with one another.

Five months just the two of them without seeing anyone else could do that to any couple so Jiraiya tried to limit it as best as possible.

Coming down the stairs to the living room in just a pair of full length skins and a loose tee shirt, it was obvious to Naruto and Jiraiya that Karin thought that she was going to be solely training today. "You might wanna get changed Karin cause you're not gonna be training today." Jiraiya stated as he brought over some food to the table for himself.

Turning to her boyfriend Karin raised an eyebrow and wondered what was going on. "Jiraiya-sensei said we're going to sea country so that he can meet one of his contacts for his network. While he's doing that we get to have a small break from training and get to visit their beaches." Naruto said with a grin on his face.

"Oh that's wonderful! Umi no Kuni are supposed to have the best beaches in the entire world!" Karin exclaimed with happiness written all over her face. The red haired girl quickly went into her room and started changing her clothes so that she wouldn't be wearing trousers to the beach.

Coming back down, Karin was wearing the same top as before although he could see bikini straps around her neck. Instead of the compression trousers Karin was wearing a pink skirt which Naruto assumed she had bikini bottoms underneath.

After breakfast, the trio of shinobi watched in awe as Jiraiya went through about 50 hand seals and unleashed a large amount of chakra; the house disappeared in a second.

From there, the Jonin, chunin and genin all made their way to Sea Country.

**5 hours later**

Having stopped off at a seafood place to get some lunch after their travels, Naruto and Karin headed off towards the beach. Putting down their towels on the sand the duo started taking off their clothes.

"I still can't believe that you got a tattoo Naruto-kun and one so big as well." Karin commented as she looked at the arm of Naruto after he took his top off.

Feeling a little bit self-conscious as this wasn't the first time that she had seen it, Naruto responded "You don't like it?"

"No-no-no." Karin quickly said as she didn't want her boyfriend getting the wrong idea. "I've never seen a tattoo outside of a magazine before." The red headed girl whispered as she ran her hand over the ink markings.

"I thought that getting this would show how much I thank them for giving me something to strive for, something to become." Naruto stated, looking down at his the cobra head in particular where Karin's hand was over his right pectoral.

"It does look amazing, it makes me kind of want one."

"Really?" Naruto questioned wondering what Karin would look like with a tattoo just like his own. He couldn't help but think that it would look pretty bad. That being said Naruto had absolutely no idea of how to tell his girlfriend that.

"I don't want something like the one you have because it's much harder to get a job with tattoos that people can see. You've got it a bit easier since you will get so much stronger than everyone else but I can't do that for a civilian esque job even if I am a shinobi." Karin explained.

Despite trying to hide it Karin could see the relief on the face of her boyfriend which she responded with a look of annoyance. Seeing this, Naruto gave a side hug with his left arm on the underside of Karin's ribcage.

"You know… there are always other places where you can get tattoos." Naruto proposed with a suggestive smile on his face. As this was happening, the blonde haired teenager started tracing down the lower part of her lat muscle, around the hip bone and down to where the fabric of Karin's bikini started.

"Stop it Naruto-kun!" Karin said scandalized and slapped the hand of her boyfriend. Despite the reaction, she couldn't help but shiver in excitement.

Leaning in, Naruto Uzumaki gave a kiss to the cheek of Karin which made her face almost go as red as her hair and eyes. Sighing in happiness, Karin took of her glasses, placed them with her bag and grabbed a hold of Naruto's hand. She needed Naruto more so than ever when she didn't have her glasses because she couldn't tell the difference between a rock and seaweed from five metres away.

**Later**

"Naruto-kun, can you please tie the strings to my bikini back up." Karin said as she put a bookmark in her book and proceeded to put it in her bag.

Doing just what his girlfriend asked of him, Naruto knelt on the sand and tied them up. He honestly had no idea why girls had such a fixation on tanning but he wasn't going to bring that up.

Using some wind chakra on his hands, Naruto brushed off the sand on his knees and put the rest of his clothes back on. As he was doing this Karin was doing the same thing respectively.

With her bag on one shoulder, the red haired girl grabbed her boyfriend's hand with the other when they were ready and headed off to where they were supposed to meet with their sensei.

"So it look you guys had a good time in the water and under the sun." Jiraiya said upon meeting up at the ice cream parlour.

"What do you mean Jiraiya-sensei?" Karin nervously questioned. She knew all too well what type of personality her sensei had and what conclusions his mind could come to.

"Your face is as red as your hair Karin; it looks like you got sunburnt today Red." Jiraiya said with a grin on his face.

Shocked at what she had just heard, Karin put both of her hands to her face so she could if the skin was any hotter than normal. "Oh no, I hope that it isn't bad enough that it starts to peel." Karin said in worry.

"Don't worry, you will still look good even if it does start to peel." Naruto said, trying to comfort his girlfriend.

"Aw, thanks Naruto-kun." The red headed girl said but she was still concerned more with her face.

"Come on you guys, let's go home you two still have lots of studying to do even if there is no physical training tonight." Jiraiya commanded to which the two shinobi in training nodded. They knew that they had to give it their everything so that they could achieve the things that they wanted to.

**Three days later**

Having sealed the house once more, it was time for the trio of shinobi headed off to their next location which was a place in tea country. "Jiraiya-sensei, is it okay for us to go check something out that has been bugging me for the past few days?"

This was the first that the silver haired man had heard of it. "Wait a minute, what's been bugging you?" Jiraiya questioned with curiosity and Naruto also keenly listened in as this was the first he was hearing of it as well.

"Well… I'm not sure really" Karin said sinking into her clothes a bit with the attention on her. "There's this really weird chakra signature nearby and it's been bugging me for our time here."

"What does the chakra feel like?" Naruto questioned. After Karin told him about her ability, Naruto wanted to know more about it.

Putting her hands into a seal, Karin closed her eyes and focused on the chakra signal. "It's like watery; I don't know a better way to explain it."

After hearing the chakra being so similar to water, Jiraiya had an idea of what it could be but he had no idea what it was doing in sea country. "How strong is the amount of chakra?"

"It's about high chunin level Jiraiya-sensei."

Naruto though couldn't help but wonder what it was that made chakra watery.

"Alright, we've got a bit of time to go and see what this is. Karin, lead the way." Jiraiya commanded to which the red haired girl nodded.

As they were making their way to wherever this "water chakra" was, Naruto spotted a sign to the beach which he and Karin went to a few days ago. From there, the trio of shinobi went to a beach nearby and proceeded to water walk across the surface to an island barely in sight.

When they got to the island, Jiraiya had a look around and got a bad feeling. When you were a ninja for this long you tended to trust your gut instinct. "Naruto, I want you to make 100 shadow clones and send them all throughout this island on a scouting mission. If any of the clones find anything of interest tell them to dispel before checking it out." Jiraiya ordered. The super pervert was gone and its place was the veteran Elite Jonin of Konoha who had served through two wars and lived to tell the tale.

"Karin I want you to do a thorough scan of the area nearby and tell how many chakra signatures are on this island and how strong they are."

"Got it sensei." Both of them replied and they set out to do their task. Karin was the first to complete her task. "Sensei, there are no chakra signatures on this island. The only one is the chakra I mentioned before."

"There is a tunnel but my clone cannot see anything inside because it is pitch black sensei." Naruto stated a few minutes after Karin.

"Good, I want you to lead us to that location." Jiraiya ordered Naruto to which the blonde haired boy nodded.

Once they got to the cave, Jiraiya once again took command of the situation since he was the most experienced ninja at the scene. Lifting his index finger in the air, Jiraiya used a seal less fire ninjutsu to light up his finger as a makeshift torch.

As they were walking down the corridor, Jiraiya suddenly put his other hand out in front of him. Seeing the signal, Naruto and Karin stopped. Using one hand, Jiraiya did the hand sign for a shadow clone and the clone went forward, springing the trap which killed it instantly with a spear penetrating it from the floor. Naruto and Jiraiya in particular gulped at this because they knew just how powerful nut shots were.

This happened two more times before the cave expanded from a simple tunnel into an underground cavern.

"_Who's there? I don't recognize any of your chakra signatures." _A voice called out trying to be as menacing as possible. Karin was nervous and so was Naruto although he did a much better job hiding it. Jiraiya's face however was neutral; no emotion being displayed whatsoever.

"I was right, you sound just like your older brother." Jiraiya said out loud. Both Naruto and Karin looked at him strangely.

"_What! How do you know my brother!" _That same voice shouted out.

"I met him a few times, he was an okay shinobi." Jiraiya replied taking a step to the largest glass cylinder holding water. As Jiraiya did this the room went silent.

The voice in the room obviously went silent hearing someone say that his brother was an "okay" shinobi was shocking to say the least. His brother was essentially the Itachi of Konoha without being fucked up in the head.

What the person behind the voice didn't know was that calling his brother Kirigakure's equal to Itachi was a PR attempt to strengthen the village. He was good, he just wasn't at the same level as Itachi Uchiha.

"Naruto, break this glass." Jiraiya commanded to which the blonde haired boy nodded and prepared a rasengan in his hand. When the jutsu connected with the glass, it shattered on impact and started flooding the room. As the water hit her feet, Karin contemplated saying something but chose not to.

"_You don't look half bad."_ A voice whispered into Karin's ear and as she turned around, she noticed that there was a boy about her age pointing his index finger pointed right at her head. Oh and there was the fact that he was completely naked!

Knowing exactly what the threat of this person was, Jiraiya formed a rasengan and held it directly at the head of the person in front of him. Naruto despite the fact that it was made slower than his sensei, Naruto had his at the base of the boy's spine. There was a grimace on the face of Naruto as he had never fought a naked person before.

"I really wouldn't do that if I was you Suigetsu." Jiraiya casually mentioned although he was anything but.

Recognizing the voice to be the one that he was speaking with before Suigetsu turned his head with his hand remaining pointed at Karin and was face to face with the rasengan. Sweat was dripping down his face as he desperately tried to control his emotions. He was shitting bricks. He had no idea what the jutsu in front of him was but given the fact he could actually see the chakra, it must have been a powerful technique.

"Oh and why not old man?" Suigetsu questioned unknowingly pushing his luck.

It wasn't Jiraiya who replied but Naruto. "Because if you touch a single hair on my girlfriend, I will kill you."

As Suigetsu turned around to face the new potential threat, the white haired teenager found another one of those chakra balls right in front of his dick. Panicking, Suigetsu put both of his arms up in the air "Alright alright, just get that thing away from the great white shark." The white haired boy said with a bead of sweat falling down his temple.

Naruto looked over to his sensei who nodded. The rasengan that Naruto was wielding disappeared.

"So the great white shark huh?" Jiraiya asked with an amused expression on his face.

"Haha, yeah it is cunt!" Suigetsu proudly boasted despite the awkward situation he was in.

Sighing, Jiraiya turned to his blonde haired student. "Naruto, get some shorts for this kid, I don't want to have to look at his clownfish any longer." Jiraiya ordered to which Naruto nodded, it would make the situation that much easier for everyone involved. Karin breathed a sigh of relief, the boy named Suigetsu was easy on the eyes if she was honest with herself.

Almost two minutes later and Suigetsu was now wearing a pair of shorts. "Alright so who are you old man and what kind of jutsu did you and the midget use?" The white haired boy questioned, completely disregarding Naruto and Karin as threats.

"Who am i? WHO AM I?" Jiraiya said with a grin on his face that kept on getting bigger and bigger as he continued speaking. Going through hand seals, Jiraiya did a summoning ninjutsu which brought a Toad

"I am the man who men want to be, I am the man who women want to be with, I am the legendary Jiraiya-sama!" Even the Toad that he was on top of got in the act and started dancing alongside his master.

Suigetsu stared.

Naruto stared.

Karin stared.

"Were you dropped on your head as a child?" Suigetsu loudly called out to which Jiraiya hung his head in shame muttering something that only he could hear.

The Toad dispelled and Jiraiya walked over to the three teenagers sulking.

"No respect for your superiors… So Suigetsu what are you going to do now that we rescued you from the clutches of my former teammate." Just the mention of Orochimaru made the purple eyed boy shiver.

"I'm gonna go out and collect the seven swords of the mist village." Suigetsu said full of determination and confidence.

Jiraiya couldn't help but laugh. "Heh, good luck with that gaki."

Affronted at this, Suigetsu visibly showed his anger. "What do you mean!"

"Despite you being good for a kid, you're still nowhere near the same level of some of the stronger shinobi like Zabuza and Kisame. The one person who you are close to the level of is Raiga but since he has the thunder fangs, you're up shit creak without a paddle.

Plus, with you being a missing nin, you're going to have to constantly be on the move from the hunter ninja coming after you. That means that you are barely going to have enough time to train your abilities so you can go up against the likes of Kisame and Zabuza."

Annoyed because what Jiraiya was saying to him was one hundred percent true, Suigetsu didn't know what to do. "Alright then, what do you suggest then wanker?" the white haired boy questioned and got a bit lippy when he guessed that the ninja in front of him wasn't going to kill him.

Suigetsu noticed that both Naruto and Karin were giving him minor glares but he couldn't care less, as far as he was concerned, the only threat was the Sannin.

"Well I'm training both of these kids and they need a sparring partner who is more on their level and fights differently to me. I am training them for four months before we're going back to Konoha and then we can part ways."

Admittedly, given the fact that he thought that he was better than both of the two kids beside him, Suigetsu was a little pissed off. "Oh and what's in it for me? They don't look very tough."

Naruto was annoyed but thanks to his training with the snake clan, he kept his emotions to himself and didn't let them show on his face. Karin meanwhile knew that it was the truth and she was fine with it. After all, she never intended to be a frontline fighter.

"During these four months I will also train you, let you live in my house and cover everything you need such as food, clothes, equipment and anything else you need." Jiraiya stated to which Suigetsu couldn't help but whistle.

"Wow if you're offering all that you must be fucking loaded!"

"Yeah, I'm pretty much the world's richest shinobi with only one other person being able to lay claim to my title." The author of a bestselling novel series stated.

Thinking about it for a while, the Hozuki clan member sighed. "Alright then let's get this babysitting mission underway then."

Jiraiya let the surprise appear on his face and he didn't bother trying to hide it. "I thought I would have to butter you up with more offers but okay then."

"Dammit! Anyway what choice did I have? You were right about not being able to train as a missing ninja and I'm not strong enough yet to fight Zabuza-sempai or Kisame-sempai."

Naruto and Karin throughout this were silent. They didn't know why Jiraiya was offering this to the ninja who threatened to kill Karin. They didn't buy the reason from Jiraiya for a second. They knew that there was something else that was going through the mind of their sensei.

Suigetsu was thinking similar things though he knew no matter what he was going to leave the trio of shinobi when the time was up after he had gotten all of the training from Jiraiya. He was no fool, everyone around the world knew the legend of the Yondaime Hokage of Konoha and how he was the strongest ninja of the generation. By in large Jiraiya was already famous before the rise to prominence of Minato Namikaze but that was with the older generation. When word got out that he was the sensei of the world's strongest ninja at the time, Jiraiya became known to the younger generations of shinobi in other villages.

If a chance was presented in front of him to train under Jiraiya, then he was definitely going to take it. He knew that he wouldn't regret it at the end of the training.

"Alright since there's a new person in our group, we will set up camp here in Sea Country for another night before heading off to Tea Country." Jiraiya stated to which all three teenagers followed his orders.

**Later**

"Naruto, Karin, I have a mission for you two." Jiraiya said coming from the kitchen.

Instantly, the attention of Karin and Naruto was given to their sensei from their studying. "This isn't a mission that will go on your records but it is even more important than that. The reason why I offered Suigetsu to join us is because the clan that he is from has a powerful bloodline. Normally I wouldn't care that much but this situation was simply too good to pass up. If he can become half as good as the second Mizukage who was also from the Hozuki clan then he will be a fearsome shinobi."

"Uhh, I don't get how this applies to us sensei." Karin questioned with a look of confusion on her face. Naruto's eyes however lit up.

"You don't want him to go back to being a missing ninja when all this is over do you sensei? You want him to come back to Konoha with us don't you?" Naruto guessed.

Jiraiya nodded. "Konoha is in a bad state at the moment because of the joint invasion so we need to strengthen as much as possible and that's where you come in. you two need to become close to Suigetsu and convince him to come to Konoha. Hopefully if all goes well, Konoha will have all of the Hozuki clan amongst our ranks."

The two students of Jiraiya nodded before Karin spoke up. "Wait you said that Konoha would have all of the Hozuki clan in their ranks… what happened to their clan? Surely there would be other members back at their home wouldn't there?"

"Unfortunately due to the tyrannic regime employed, the Mizukage thought that people with bloodlines would be a threat to his position so he ordered the purging of all shinobi who had a bloodline. He wiped out the three major clans of Kirigakure with those being the Kaguya, Yuki and the Hozuki clan." Jiraiya explained with a sombre expression on his face.

"That's terrible." Karin said with trying to find a way to empathize with the boy who was taking a shower at the moment.

Rubbing the back of his girlfriend, Naruto tried to comfort her. "Konoha isn't like that at all, in fact it's the complete opposite Karin-chan. Civilians in Konoha worship the ground that shinobi with bloodlines walk on. They see it as a special ability that can be used to protect their lives."

Resting her head on the chest of Naruto, Karin spoke up to Jiraiya. "We'll do it sensei, no one deserves to have that sort of life so hopefully we can give him a second chance at having a place to call home like you two did for me."


	32. Will see me as plain old Jane

"Frankly speaking, you're never going to be a true threat Kisame if you haven't already defeated all of the other six swordsmen. Kisame is on a whole different level to the others. Kisame is on my level and I've run into him before." Jiraiya said to Suigetsu having just finished watching him spar with Naruto.

"Yeah, well you're supposed to be the sensei so what do I need to do?" Suigetsu said angrily as he didn't like anyone pointing out that he wasn't as good as the people he admired as a kid.

"Oh, you're not going to like it one bit." Jiraiya said with a grin on his face that made even the battle hardened Suigetsu nervous.

"You might be fast but there is no chance that you will be able to wield either the executioner's blade or Samehada to their full potential unless you bulk up and gain a lot of muscle. This means that you're going to have to destroy your body every day to the point where you can't do another single swing of a sword or another push up."

"That seems alright I guess, nothing unusual with training until you can't train anymore." Suigetsu commented not seeing the point in Jiraiya's long speech.

"Since you are also going to be going up against Kisame, you're going to need massive chakra reserves because he will constantly be trying to steal it from you. Because of the massive increase in chakra reserves, you are also going to need to increase your control so that you can actually use a jutsu." Once again when Jiraiya lectured, Suigetsu couldn't help but wonder what was so special about this training. As far as he could tell there was no special technique or method to Jiraiya's training.

From what he could gather, all he was going to be doing was become bigger, faster, stronger, larger chakra capacity and better control over his chakra. There was not one mentioning of a new jutsu that he could use.

"The whole point of this training will get you to the point where you are essentially having your demon arm jutsu covering your entire body without the usage of chakra." Jiraiya explained to his newest student who nodded with a smile that hadn't been present on his face before.

"Due to all of the energy you're going to be spending training, you're going to have to eat like a mother fucker. Even if there is a point where you don't think like you can eat any more, you will force the food down. You are going to need to consume an insane amount of calories to not only fuel the activities of each day but also have enough energy at the end of the day so your body can build muscle."

"Geez, you're making it sound like a job where the motto for business is "no fun allowed.""

"There isn't." Jiraiya simply said with a frown on his face. "You're a shinobi and this is your job. When your life and the lives of others on the line you don't have the time to socialize when you train. The whole point of training is to clear everything out of your mind and give everything until you can't take another step." Just from meeting the boy, Jiraiya knew that he was the type of kid who coasted by on talent and didn't put much effort in at all.

"Oh yeah… and what about Naruto and Karin huh? Did you give them this same passionate speech about doing your best?" Suigetsu questioned whilst rolling his eyes.

"Yes and I will give you a little bit of a back story on to what you can expect if you follow through with this training.

Naruto six months ago barely graduated from our academy by the skin of his teeth. At that time, he couldn't climb a tree with chakra alone, didn't know that fuinjutsu existed, had three jutsus in his arsenal where none were offensive jutsus, had never touched a sword and four foot malnourished kid who was about as fast and as strong as most academy graduates." Jiraiya paused to gain a breath before continuing on.

"Just look how much of an improvement he has made in six months alone and imagine how much he could potentially improve if given more time."

Suigetsu couldn't help but widen his eyes when he heard this. For all intents and purposes, he thought that Naruto was the genius prodigy of Konoha given his skills. He had been sparring with him for the past week now and despite being slightly better than Naruto, Suigetsu knew that the blonde haired boy was a great sparring partner.

To think all Naruto had changed so much in the past six months was mind boggling. He could only imagine how strong he would be if he had say three years. If given the time and the rate of progress continued at the same speed, Suigetsu knew that he would be staring at someone on the same level as a Kage.

"Karin was an academy student one month ago. She got forced into competing in the chunin exams by Kusagakure officials to fill up the numbers on a genin team. A month later she left the village after they sent he only remaining family on a suicide mission because her performance in the exams was poor.

One month and you can see that she also has progressed a lot. Since she doesn't want to be a battlefield juggernaut like both you and Naruto, I've gone a bit easier on her training so she has enough energy to properly study her university degree."

Suigetsu whistled.

"One thing I learnt in life far too late was that if there is something that you want, you have to give it your absolute everything to get it. You don't get to live to my age as a shinobi without having picked up a few lessons to pass on to the younger generations."

"Alright then, you got me hooked, lets fucking smash this bitch of a training session out and then go stuff our faces Jiraiya-sensei!" Suigetsu said with a massive grin on his face that showed off his sharpened teeth.

Internally, Jiraiya was giving himself a massive pat on the back. He wondered whether or not he had lost his touch for motivating speeches as the last time he had done one was during The Third Shinobi War. Judging by the reaction he got, he was confident that he still had it. _Yeah, I'm still awesome!_

**3 months later**

"Ahhhh! I so totally know what it feels like to be one of those retards in a wheelchair who have no control over their bodies." Suigetsu loudly complained.

"Shut up. I went through the just as harsh a training session as you and you don't see me complaining." Naruto called out annoyed at the constant moaning coming from his training partner and rival.

"You don't have a right to complain cunt, you got the Kyubi to heal any and all injuries you get."

"That's why I have to push even harder than you so that it evens out!" Naruto said getting angrier as the when it came to training, the Kyubi was a low blow.

"Cunt did you just say that you train harder than me? If I wasn't so broken at the moment I'd rip off your nuts and force them down your throat!"

Before Naruto could bring out an insult to fire back, Karin cut him off. "Will both of you shut the hell up! I'm trying to study here!" The red haired girl screamed having had enough of the two boy's fighting.

"Jeez, calm down, no need to get your panties in a twist."

Instead of rising to the bait just like he wanted her to do, Karin turned her attention back to the book in front of her and got back to studying.

Ten minutes later and Jiraiya called out saying that dinner was ready. It literally took five minutes before Naruto and Suigetsu managed to make it down the stairs where Suigetsu collapsed because he didn't even have enough strength to support his own body weight.

Naruto, when everyone was sitting down at the table eating the food in front of them, smiled. It was times like this that made him feel like he was a part of a family.

"Not that training hasn't been great and all, but when are gonna learn some proper ninjutsu. "You haven't taught us one thing that we didn't already know?" Suigetsu, blunt as ever called out with no forewarning whatsoever

"Why are you looking at me like I'm your messiah? You've sparred with me, does it look like I know high level water ninjutsu since I use fire and earth based techniques?" Jiraiya retorted back; whilst most of the time he liked the kid's straight forward attitude, there were some times where it got on his nerves.

"It's just frustrating that I'm improving so much in every aspect of being a ninja and yet I'm lagging behind in both genjutsu and ninjutsu." Suigetsu complained, not that he wasn't thankful for the teaching he had received, but after training with Jiraiya for the past four months, he had developed high standards in himself.

Naruto himself felt that he was a part of this category as well. Whilst he had improved a lot in an overall sense, a part of him wished that he learnt more elemental ninjutsu. Unfortunately for the blonde haired boy, he suffered from the same problem that Suigetsu did where his affinity clashed with his sensei's.

Luckily for him he had learnt the rasengan and two hair based ninjutsus but he was a chakra monster thanks to the Kyubi and genetics. He really needed to make the most of the gift that he was given and not let it go to waste.

Seeing what was going through the mind of his godson, Jiraiya sighed. "Naruto, the reason why you don't know a lot of Fuuton ninjutsu is because hardly anyone knows them. Having a wind nature is rare especially for Konoha. There are very few wind techniques that aren't highly classified secrets of the respective village that houses them. Konoha really only has two good wind users. One is Asuma Sarutobi who is good but wasted a lot of his potential by joining The Twelve Guardian Shinobi.

The other person as much as I am loathe to admit it is someone that you will have to hear from on a regular basis if you continue on to become the Hokage." Jiraiya said and Naruto couldn't help but glance in confusion.

"This person is Danzo Shimura. He is the same age as Hiruzen and just as powerful. He is on the council and a powerful figure in the political landscape. If you wanted a black and white representation, Hiruzen was the good guy whilst Danzo is the bad guy."

Suigetsu wondered who Hiruzen was but then remembered that it was the name of the Sandaime Hokage. Meanwhile, Naruto nodded. He knew that this wasn't the place to ask Jiraiya more about the man because Suigetsu wasn't a part of Konoha… yet and there was no doubt some sensitive information.

"Well that's just great. We're both fucked. I'm a missing nin who has no hope of going back home to retrieve my clan's scrolls because of the fucking bloodline purging. You on the other hand either have no one willing or capable to teach willing to teach you any wind based techniques." Suigetsu bluntly said, stating the obvious.

"Ehh, it's really not that big of a deal… you're clan's compound is on its own island and is fairly far away from the main island right?" Jiraiya ventured a guess.

"Yeah… how'd you know that?"

"Oh, I have snuck into all of the villages over my time as a shinobi so I've got a rough idea of the layout of every major point in each village."

"Oh… wait, you're not thinking what I think you're thinking… right?" Suigetsu questioned with astonishment written all over his face. He simply didn't think that it was possible to do what Jiraiya was insinuating.

"What is it that Jiraiya-sensei's thinking of doing Suigetsu?" Karin asked, curious as to what was going on between the two.

"If I'm right, Jiraiya is thinking of breaking and entering my clan compound and stealing all of the jutsu scrolls and then leaving as if nothing had happened. So… am I right?" the white haired boy questioned with a look of hope in his eyes. He really wanted to get his family's stuff back so that the Mizukage could use it for his own personal gain.

It was the one thing that he hated most for being a missing ninja; he wasn't allowed to go home. He really didn't want to get his hopes up just in case he was wrong, but it was hard not to think about potentially going home for the first time in a long time.

"What! But something like that could start an International Relations incident and that could lead to a war!" Karin exclaimed in shock.

For the first time since he had joined the group, Suigetsu didn't have a swear word filled insult to throw out. Instead he was simply staring down at his legs. Everyone was surprised at this and what followed was an awkward silence. Conservation stifled and in the end no one said anything more throughout dinner.

**The next day**

"I've been thinking a lot and I think we should do what we talked about last night." Jiraiya said, starting a conversation around the dinner table as they were having lunch.

"What! But isn't that really risky doing something like that Jiraiya-sensei?" Karin questioned with a look of unease on her face. Suigetsu on the other hand when he heard this had his eyes widened but didn't say anything.

"Sometimes Karin-chan, doing what is right comes with a lot of risks." Jiraiya said giving a smile to the girl who blushed in response.

Despite knowing that it could harm his chances of the plan going through, Suigetsu couldn't help but question the decision. "But what do you have to gain from this? Surely you wouldn't be willing to risk a war starting between Konoha and Kirigakure just for me."

"At the moment Kirigakure is suffering from massive instability due to the Mizukage's regime. They are not a powerful nation and are in the same boat as Sunagakure in how other nations are trying to take their spot amongst the big five. They wouldn't risk a war after us showing how easily we fought off the invasion a couple of months ago."

"So Kiri is weak at the moment, but that doesn't answer why would you do this for me?"

"I think it is wrong what Kirigakure is doing in terms of purging the bloodlines. If you were living in Konoha, you would have praise showered upon you and have countless amounts of women lining up at your door." He knew that he was embellishing this story but he wanted to get Suigetsu onto the idea of living in Konoha.

The white haired boy couldn't help a wicked grin from forming on his face. The thought of sluts spreading their legs just because he had a bloodline was music to his ears having grown up in Kiri. He never thought that anything like that was possible; it sounded too good to be true.

"Oi Naruto, that sounds too good to be true right…the girls in Konoha can't be that easy right?" Suigetsu questioned since Karin was just like him in that she had never lived in Konoha before.

Realising what his sensei was doing, Naruto got in on the act. Never would the lessons of snake clan disappear from his mind. Naruto also saw out of the corner of his eye that his girlfriend was intently waiting on this answer.

"I'll tell you the story of a kid named Sasuke Uchiha. Mix a tragic past that girls are aware about with being from Konoha's most powerful clan at the time; add in the fact that he was the best shinobi of the generation in the eyes of everybody; finish it off with a personality that treats everybody like trash and you have in the palms of your hands a whole entire class where every single girl in it wanted to be your girlfriend." Naruto explained to which Suigetsu started grinning.

Before Suigetsu could say something, Jiraiya spoke up. "Finally if all that wasn't enough, there's a stigma where it is seen good for a civilian to get with a shinobi, especially one coming from a clan." Jiraiya said waiting a good minute to let it sink in before continuing on.

"This is something that hardly any people know about me, Naruto and Karin don't know it either but at the end of The Second Shinobi World War, I took a leave of absence when I found three orphans in Amegakure who were caught in the crossfire of war. I spent three years living with them and taught them how to be shinobi so that they wouldn't have to go through any more hardships in life."

Karin, for her part was looking at her sensei in a newfound light. "That was very sweet of you Jiraiya-sensei. I'm really proud that you did that." the red haired girl said giving the man a big smile. Naruto as well was looking at his godfather with newfound respect.

Hearing this, Suigetsu was confused he had no idea why someone would leave their whole village just so that they could spend time with a group of kids. He knew if he was in the same position as Jiraiya, he would have just killed the kids and ended their misery.

"I'm not saying this to prove how noble I am, I am saying that sometimes in life, you get to a point where you can either choose the easy option or choose the right option which means you have to invest a little bit more time and effort."

In a quiet voice that none of the three ninjas at the table had heard him speak in before, Suigetsu addressed the man. "Thank you Jiraiya-sensei." It was the first time since he had used the suffix of -sensei.

"Alright then guys, we will leave tomorrow morning to Mizu no Kuni and go to bed early so that we wake up at 2:30 in the morning. From there me and Suigetsu will make our way to the Hozuki clan compound. Unfortunately Naruto, due to your status, you can't come on the mission as it is too easy for sensor shinobi to see you."

Naruto nodded although there was a frown on his face. Just because he accepted it, didn't mean he had to like it.

"Karin, you are going to be essential to this mission as you are by far the best sensor that I have ever seen. You will need to constantly use your jutsu for the duration of the time whilst me and Suigetsu are inside his clan compound.

As Karin is doing this, you and I will be in your clan compound. No doubt there will be traps to the library / safe so we will have to be on our guard. There is also going to be high level seals preventing us from getting in. That's where we come in because they no doubt are going to be blood based and who knows what else." Both Suigetsu and Karin nodded. Their jobs were easy enough to understand.

"Since it's your clan compound this heist should be a quick mission as you know where the room is. I am expecting max fifteen minutes from when the mission starts to when we will be leaving without a trace of us being anywhere near Kirigakure. Karin, since you will be our eyes and ears on this mission you, Suigetsu and I will each be wearing earpieces on a radio frequency to tell us to hurry up in case someone is coming to our location." Jiraiya finished off with and he got nods from all three of his students.

"Right then, obviously we are not going to do any training since you three are recovering and we have a mission soon, there will be no more physical training until the mission is over and we are back in fire country."

"Sweet! Finally I can rest!" It didn't take much to guess who said this.

"Oh no you don't, just because you three aren't doing any physical training, it doesn't mean that you're getting off without training." Jiraiya quickly intervened.

A head hung low after this. "Damn…"

"I've got a reputation to uphold as a damn good sensei, I can't have my students slacking off or that will look bad on me. All you kids are getting free board so that you can focus on your studies and training. I can easily start charging you three if you want…" Jiraiya left the question open for someone to gather up the courage and say something.

Karin and Naruto promptly glared at Suigetsu.

Suigetsu wisely decided to keep his mouth shut for once.

**Two days later – 2:30am**

Naruto, Suigetsu and Karin all woke up on time. That being said, it wasn't as if they did it out of their own initiative as Jiraiya had to wake them up.

Having already prepared the night before by dressing in the clothes that they would be completing the mission in, Naruto looked up to Karin who was tying her hair into a bun at the top of her head. That combined with her glasses made her look sexy in the eyes of her boyfriend.

Spinning her around, Naruto kissed Karin on the lips. "You should have your hair up like that more often."

Offering back a grin, Karin gave peck on the lips in response. "Maybe I will Naruto-kun."

"Come on you two. We don't have all day for you two to be necking on with another." Suigetsu hissed as he anxious to get this mission underway. It would be the first mission that he had been on ever since he had left his former home.

The couple broke apart. Jiraiya chucked the three of them two ration bars each. "That's breakfast." Jiraiya stated and surprisingly Suigetsu didn't complain. Karin on the other hand had a look of detest on her face. Unlike her two counterparts, she had never gone on missions where the only thing you could eat was ration bars.

"Naruto, you've gotten good enough in sealing that you will be able to seal this house back into its scroll. After we have gone, I want you to do just that and then reverse summon yourself back to summoning clan."

"Wait, you never told me that you had a contract!" Suigetsu said surprised at this new bit of information.

"I didn't really think it was necessary." Naruto responded with a shrug of his shoulders.

"That's something we can discuss at a later date. We have a mission to complete so without further ado, here's our ride in! Kuchiyose no jutsu."

"How is that frog going to help us sensei?" Karin asked as she was mightily confused.

"Oh, you will soon see hehehe."

**Later**

"I hate you sensei!" Karin hissed as she tried to get the last remaining bits of saliva off of her clothes. Thankfully she was wearing full body clothes and a balaclava so that none of it touched her skin. She would have killed him if it did.

"Well you certainly learn something new every day." Suigetsu said after having experienced being inside a frog for the first time. Thankfully he didn't switch some of his body into water or else the frog might have drunk him.

"Ahh, it's something that you get used to after a while, now let's get back down to business." Jiraiya said going from happy go lucky man into veteran in the space of one sentence.

"Hai" Suigetsu and Karin both said in unison and they got into position. Karin found a bush to the right of the entrance to the Hozuki clan compound and hid in it so that she could close her eyes and focus on her sensor jutsu.

Meanwhile, as this was happening, Suigetsu was about to jump over the wall before Jiraiya pulled him back. "There's bound to be some kind of sensor that will alert Kirigakure if we jump over the wall. If I just break the seal on the door, it will break the alarms."

Nodding at this, Suigetsu watched in fascination in how Jiraiya went through thirty hand seals before slamming both hands on each side of the double doors. They opened easily after that and the water based ninja went down the feels trip looking at home for the first time in ages.

"Gaki, we don't have time to do this as much as you want to go down nostalgia lane, there are more important things that we need to do." Jiraiya commanded which broke the boy out of his trance.

"Right, sorry Jiraiya-sensei." And Suigetsu sped off right to where the clan head's home was. Watching on from behind, Jiraiya smiled as he looked on at the kid in front of him. He hoped that when the time came, Suigetsu would continue to stick with them and come back to Konoha. Even with the bloodline not factoring into the equation, Jiraiya had come to like the kid like a nephew or even a son like Naruto.

"Kami I hated this family. Just because they're direct descendants of the Hozuki who became the Mizukage, they thought that they were god's gift to the clan. They never worked as hard as everyone else and instead just sat on their fat arse living a life of luxury on the money which other families, family's like mine had to pay from the mission that we did."

"Well you're now clan head so you get to make the rules. Wait, I want to use a jutsu of mine." Jiraiya said and Suigetsu stopped immediately.

Going through 35 hand seals, Jiraiya placed his hands on the ground and waited. Fifteen seconds later spots in the night that lit up yellow. There was one on the door to the head house. "What was that?"

"That was a jutsu that I created which is like a sonar finding other seals in the area."

Suigetsu was impressed. Half a minute later and they were inside the house searching for the door to downstairs, well Jiraiya was, Suigetsu on the other hand was busily searching for a proper sword. "This will do nicely…" the missing ninja said as he eyed the katana on the wall. He knew exactly what it was. The son of the second Mizukage ordered it to be made from the finest metals so that it could be a showpiece for the head family.

Getting the blade which was still inside its sheath, Suigetsu then started looking for the room.

"Gaki I've found it!" Jiraiya shouted out and Suigetsu quickly headed to where the voice was coming from.

"I need you to put some of your blood here on this parchment so I can write a powerful seal which will break open this door." Jiraiya said as he had a brush out ready to draw the seal.

One minute later and there was a loud noise of a lock opening. What followed was the stone door opening up to reveal a 7m by 4m room filled with scrolls. "There's no time to be admiring, each one of these scrolls can contain 3 scrolls each." Jiraiya said handing Suigetsu 4 scrolls and keeping 3 to himself. "They are specially pre-prepared scrolls that won't shit themselves when sealing scrolls into them."

Nodding at the order, Suigetsu quickly started sealing everything into the scrolls in his hands. It took the duo thirty seconds to get it all down to seven scrolls and they exited the room to seal it back up.

"There's a team of two chunin level shinobi coming at a chunin level speed." Karin said via the intercom.

"Shit alright then, thanks Karin. Let's hurry." Jiraiya responded and quickly reapplied the seal and headed back out to the front door and applied that seal.

15 seconds later and Jiraiya, Suigetsu and Karin all out the front of the clan compound waiting for Jiraiya to seal off the building. Once that was done Jiraiya quickly summoned the same frog that the trio came in on and gave it the scrolls.

One minute later and the trio of shinobi were all inside the frog safely heading back to the safe point covered by the frog's undetectable chakra barrier.

As the two chunin shinobi got off the ocean from water walking and stepped down on the island, they looked around and couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. "It must have been some animal that had a high enough chakra signature to register as a genin because I can't see anything wrong with this place." One chunin said to another.

"Yeah it must have been a false alarm because I can't see anything wrong with this place either." The two chunin headed back to the main island where the village was to report their findings back to the Mizukage.

**With Naruto**

Naruto was hanging out with the people who made him into who he was. Despite the fact that he wasn't training, he was still having a good time catching up with the rest of the members snake clan.

"So Naruto, what has been happening in your life since we fought the Ichibi?" Manda questioned who was in his henged human form. Beside him was his daughter who was also in her henged human form as well. Their normal bodies were simply too big.

"It has been great and I never got to thank you for helping me out at that time Manda-sama so I would like to say it now." Naruto said with a small smile on his face.

"That's alright young one." Manda said graciously although behind his neutral facial expression, he was surprised. Orochimaru never said thank you for his services and that was why he demanded human sacrifices as he might as well get a good meal out of it.

"Anyway, back to the story, After the battle I woke up outside of Konoha under the care of Jiraiya." Naruto was careful to leave off the sensei tag until he knew what Manda's thoughts on the man were.

"Jiraiya… where have I heard that name before? He's the Toad summoner am I right?"

"Yes Manda-sama."

"What did he want with you Naruto-kun?" the purple haired man said with a neutral facial expression on his face although Naruto thought that the man's eyes were drilling directly to his soul.

"He asked me a few questions because of the similarities that I have with Orochimaru. He wasn't sure who was training me and whether or not I was a threat to Konoha."

"I suppose that is an acceptable assumption given the fact that we trained both of you but go on." Manda said musing to himself, his eyes still locked onto Naruto.

"I told him that you were training me to kill Orochimaru and replace him as the representation for the snake clan in our world. Then Jiraiya asked me whether or not I still wanted to become the Hokage. I said that of course I wanted to be the Hokage. When I told him that yes I still did, he was happy enough with the answers and stopped asking me questions."

"I see… go on."

"Then he told me that we would be going on a mission together to locate the next Hokage for the village as Orochimaru killed the Sandaime." That got a raised eyebrow from Manda. He knew that Orochimaru idolized the man and yet felt completely betrayed when he chose Minato Namikaze as the Yondaime.

"During the time we were searching for Tsunade-sama to become the Hokage, Jiraiya offered to train me."

"Did he offer you the chance to switch contracts and sign with the Toads?" Manda questioned with an intense gaze that made Naruto feel like he was under the spotlight.

"No Manda-sama, Jiraiya said that whilst he would have offered it to me if I didn't already have one, he said that he knew how important the bond was between a summoner and the clan that he associated himself with."

Admittedly, Manda thought that Jiraiya would have tried to get Naruto to switch from the "dark" side and onto the side of good which was the toads. To hear that Jiraiya wanted Naruto to stay with the snake clan was a surprise blessing.

"Naruto, whilst I would like for you to get the majority of your training here, I know that there are some things that you would be better to learn from others so I am permitting you to learn from Jiraiya."

"Thank you Manda-sama." Naruto replied as he conveniently left out that he had already been training with Jiraiya without Manda's approval. Given what he knew now and how the man was his godfather, there was no way that he would stop training with the man.

"After that, Jiraiya and I sparred until we found Tsunade and Orochimaru. He was trying to convince her to join his side so that she could heals his arms which were incapable of using jutsus, we quickly prevented and Tsunade became the Hokage of Konoha.

When we went back to Konoha, I received my promotion to chunin. From there I have been going mission and training as hard as I can during my off time. Naruto said and he hoped that Manda bought the lie.

"Very well then, now if you would excuse me, there are other important events that I have to deal with. It was nice seeing you again Naruto-kun."

"Sure, you too Manda-sama." Naruto said before turning his attention back to Shakudo who was sitting on another couch.

**3 days later**

The heist went off without a hitch; as far as they knew they left the scene with everything that they had found without anyone finding out about it. Jiraiya's spy network had not reported back with a mentioning of something happening let alone linking Konoha to that something.

"Alright you three, I've got some important contracts that I have to sign for the upcoming sequel to Icha Icha Make Out paradise with my agent so I will be gone for a few days." Jiraiya said to which all three of them nodded. They were big enough in that they could manage to live for three days and not get themselves killed without the supervision of Jiraiya-sensei.

"In the meantime, I've got a little mission for you three while I'm gone. "

"Sweet!" Suigetsu shouted out. "Finally I get to do a real mission! I haven't done one of those in over a year!" Karin for her part was beyond nervous. This was her first proper mission as the only the thing that she had done in the field was the chunin exams. She had no idea how she was going to handle the pressure that came with going on a mission.

"It's a low B-ranked mission where three injured men went to Konoha requesting support to get rid of a gang which has overtaken their village. The woman was going to give it to some other shinobi but I told it to give it you guys because according to my spy network, rumour has it that Raiga Kurosaki is the leader of this gang."

Jiraiya said and he watched how the eyes of Suigetsu lit up with pure joy. Both Naruto and Karin knew who he was because their friend wouldn't shut up about how the man was the weakest member of the seven swordsmen and therefore the best target to reclaim the first sword.

"Yes! You're the best sensei! So when do we start?" The boy asked with obvious enthusiasm.

"Now. Karin is going to be the team leader so I want you to follow her word without question. If you don't there will be consequences" Jiraiya said in a foreboding tone to the two boys.

They gulped.

Meanwhile, as this was happening, Karin was getting really nervous as she had no idea what to do.

Suigetsu was the first to say something. "Don't worry Red, all this mission is, is us meeting up with the three guys who need help, ask them where Raiga is, go kill Raiga and then we have a completed mission, easy." He said in the hopes of getting this mission underway.

Naruto for his part just gave a squeeze of her hand. "Don't worry Karin-chan, you'll do great."

"Thanks Fishface, Naruto-kun." Where Suigetsu and Jiraiya had the nickname Red, Karin did as best as she could in the insult giving department and returned with Fishface.

"So where do we meet these guys?" Suigetsu said turning to his sensei, ignoring the insult; he knew she didn't mean it and that it was just friendly banter, just like all the teasing he gave her.

**Katabami Gold Mine**

"Okay a little bit of background on this guy. This freak is so messed up in the head where he has a sick pleasure in burying people alive." Suigetsu said as the trio of shinobi set off at a fast pace to the location where they were going to meet up with the people who requested the mission.

"That's horrible!" Karin said with a look of disgust on her face before putting her hands in a seal and using her sensor jutsu. "I sense three men who fit the description of middle aged civilians about a kilometre and a half to the north. I also sense a person with a Jonin level chakra signature who is very close to a kid with a genin level, I mean like they're touching bodies close. They are about two kilometres northwest." Karin said with a look of absolute anger as she came to a conclusion that was not very nice.

For Naruto, he was angry too at what the first thought that came to his mind was. This was also the first time that he had ever seen his girlfriend with hatred flowing through his veins.

"Well let's go and kill the paedophilic cunt then." Suigetsu said and shot off in the direction of the enemy. Naruto and Karin shot off in the same direction although not before Naruto made a shadow clone and told it to greet the clients.

When they got to the small village, the first thing that they saw was the gold mine itself. It was pretty large and Naruto stockpiled that information for later. From there, they saw a building which the miners were walking to and from between the mine. Instantly they deduced that this was the drop off point and this was where the gold was stored.

"Raiga and the boy are 300 metres to the right. They are being surrounded by 10 other men in what seems to be a pole bearing formation. They're probably doing one of those funerals so how about we ruin their fun." Karin said to her two teammates who didn't need any more of an invitation to go and spoil the ceremony.

As Raiga didn't think that there was anything that could be a threat to him, he didn't bother sensing the area for enemy shinobi. The first two pole bearers had no idea what was coming to them when Naruto and Suigetsu appeared out of nowhere and sliced their bodies.

Before Ranmaru had the time to activate his bloodline, six of the pole bearers were already dead. By the time that he had it activated, everyone but himself and Raiga.

Sensing the genjutsu that was coming from the genin level chakra signature, Karin sent her own chakra into the system of Suigetsu to dispel it. That in combination that Suigetsu sending out a pulse of his chakra to the second that he felt Karin's chakra enter his system, the genjutsu was instantly dispelled.

Using a quick seal less water jutsu on the ground so that he was standing in a puddle, Suigetsu in a surprising move threw his sword directly at Raiga.

Raiga for his part thought that this was some upstart kid as he hadn't gotten a good look at him and laughed when he threw his sword. Dodging it with ease, he was surprised to see the bloodline limit of the Hozuki clan as the ninja in front of him turned his body into water.

Faster than Raiga could turn around, Suigetsu reformed behind the man, caught his sword and thrusted it directly through the spine of the hunchback looking man. To his and both Naruto and Karin's surprise, there were two cries of pain that came out. One was from Raiga; the other was from a kid.

Dropping his own and ripping the two fangs out of the hands of Raiga, Suigetsu spoke. "This was pathetic, I'll be taking these faggot." Suigetsu said putting the head of Raiga in between the two hooks and sliced his head off. "Ahh it feels great to do this! I haven't done this in ages."

"I think it would be fitting if we give this guy and all of his accomplices a burial, it would be ironic wouldn't it?" Naruto suggested to which Suigetsu grinned. Karin for her part was shocked at the brutality at what she had just seen. It was times like these that she knew that she didn't really have the stomach to be a front line ninja.

Once the trio of shinobi found themselves outside the cave, Naruto went through the motions and let out a jutsu "Fuuton Atsugai (Wind Release: Pressure Damage.)

The massive gust of wind aimed directly at the cave caused structural damage to the roof and caused the entire thing to collapse in on itself. "Let's go to the building which all those miners were walking into." Naruto suggested and Karin agreed with the decision.

Once inside the place, the trio of shinobi started searching inside the building where the ore was being refined into gold. As they were walking around, Naruto spotted a basic seal on a large door. "Guys come over here." He called out to his two teammates and started preparing a counter seal.

The moment that Karin and Suigetsu came over, Naruto had placed a piece of parchment on the door. Channelling a fair amount of chakra into both of his hands, Naruto placed them on the door and waited a few seconds before it the hinges blew and the door opened 2 feet.

Walking inside quickly followed by his Suigetsu and Karin, the trio were in for a surprise. Right there in front of them was 16 gold bricks sorted in a 4 by 4 formation.

"Awww yeahhh! We just hit the mother fucking jackpot!" Suigetsu said as his eyes went wide.

"The people of this village would have never found this room because of the fuinjutsu on the door." Naruto voiced as if he was hinting something. The boys were not alone as the red haired girl couldn't believe what was in front of her. She roughly knew the price of how much a gold bar was worth. "Guys… that's roughly the better part of 10 million dollars!"

Walking over to the stash, Suigetsu picked up one of the bars and was surprised at how heavy it was. It was about 30 pounds by itself.

"Hey, we're still kids so the rules of finders' keepers apply right?" Karin said making sure that she wasn't alone in this. She didn't want to look like a arsehole if they wanted to give it back to the village.

"Of course they do, Naruto use one of those scrolls you have and let's get out of here!" Suigetsu said giddy at the thought of what he could spend the money on.

Agreeing with that, Naruto pulled out one of the heavy duty scrolls as he knew that that much precious metal needed to be stored securely. It took all of a minute for Naruto to pull the scroll out of one of the pockets on his chunin flak jacket. The good thing was that even with the large weight in the scroll, it was still the same weight as what it was without the gold inside of it.

**3 days later**

Breakfast had just been completed and before training started, they had to show their sensei just what they had found in the town of Katabami. "Jiraiya-sensei, look what we found in the gold mines when we did that mission." After the blonde haired boy said this, he released the scroll and left on display the gold.

"Wow! You kids got lucky!"

"Yeah, we agreed that we would split it into thirds evenly since we all were a part of the mission."

"You do realise that this is worthless unless you actually find someone who can sell it for you right?"

"Yes, that was what I was going to ask you Jiraiya-sensei, we've talked about this but don't have anyone that we can trust to do this for us." Naruto said with a frown on his face.

"Well if you want, I can send it to my agent who does everything in terms of my books and movies. He charges a 10% commission made but I can vouch that he is the best guy for something like this. Ironically enough his name is Ari Gold."

"I think that whilst they may not like it, this would be the best option because it gets rid of all of the hassle. Since you said he is trustworthy and that he looks after all of your business ventures, he would do it quick so that he doesn't displease one of his best customers." Naruto said as he was quickly putting the pieces together in his mind.

"I'll have to talk to the others about that but thank you very much sensei. Now let's go train, we've only got two weeks before we go back to Konoha so I want to make the most out of these last training sessions." Naruto said with a smile on his face. He knew that he would miss this but he couldn't wait to get back out in the field on a deployment.


	33. Told me a story

"It's going to be really bad when you leave." Naruto said as he was sitting on pier at night. Jiraiya and Karin had already gone to bed but Suigetsu and himself had decided to stay up a little bit longer.

"Yeah I know… this has been the best time of my life ever since the Mizukage decided to start the bloodline purges." Suigetsu admitted as he stared at the water below.

"I wish you didn't have to leave, you've become my best friend in this time." Naruto said dropping a bombshell that left Suigetsu speechless.

Suigetsu knew the history to Naruto, he knew that he was a jinchuuriki and that he didn't have the best of times growing up much like himself and that was putting it lightly. At least he had a family when times got tough in the beginning to rely on but Naruto had none of that.

"You're mine too." Suigetsu replied, not once during this did their eyes meet. He didn't just say this so that he didn't look like a complete dick. At the start of his time with Jiraiya-sensei, Karin and Naruto, he thought that Naruto was weak but over time, battling with him his respect for the blonde grew. From that respect, mutual acquaintance turned into friendship as they spent time together outside of training.

"Why do are you so deadest anyway on recreating the seven swordsmen of the mist?" Naruto questioned looking at his friend.

"They were my idols when I was growing up! They were the strongest people in Kirigakure besides the Mizukage. Everyone in the entire village looked up to them. My brother Mangetsu and I made pact with one another that we would both join the group together.

Then the cunt of a Mizukage decided to do the bloodline purges. Mangetsu, since he was a high profile member of the group was one of the first targets. He managed to evade the attack before leaving the village 3 of the swords. Hunter Nin chased him to the end of the earth and killed him. My brother managed to hide the swords so that Kirigakure didn't get them.

I want to reunite the swordsmen in honour of my brother and restore the prestige that came with being a member unlike what it was since they let that pathetic piece of trash Raiga into the group." Suigetsu passionately lectured his friend on his dream.

"It sounds like you want to do that just like why I wanted to become the Hokage of Konoha. Everyone treated me like shit as a kid and then I found out that everyone respected shinobi because of all the stuff they did for the village. I saw that and wanted to become the Hokage because he was the person who was the strongest and the one who got the most respect." The blonde haired boy said staring up at the starlit sky.

"Suigetsu" Naruto said after a while as he waited for his friend to turn around. "Why do you have to recreate the seven swordsmen in the mist village? What's stopping the seven swordsmen from being just as feared and admired in the leaf village?"

The purple eyed boy's eyes widened. _I never thought of that, I guess I just went with the seven swordsmen of the mist just because that's where they originated from._

"I mean once you do collect all the swords, how would you be able to build them in Kiri with the Mizukage hating people with bloodlines?"

Suigetsu shrugged. Iunno, guess I'll just kill him as well, I mean if I can get Samehada of Kisame, then I've got to be strong enough to take on that faggot."

"And who would become the Mizukage, you wouldn't be able to as you would be the leader of the Seven Swordsmen and with you training the others, you wouldn't have the time to do a proper job as a Kage."

Suigetsu was getting frustrated. "I don't know, sheesh! I guess I haven't thought all of this threw since the task of gathering the swords in the first place was large enough."

"It's just I want to become the Hokage so I know how much of a job you would have to do be the Mizukage and I know you're not the type of person who's willing to sit behind a desk all day every day."

"Why are you asking me all of these questions!?" Suigetsu said for the first time, his anger getting the better of him.

Naruto himself was someone who had good control over his emotions but everyone can lose it on occasion. "Because I want to be able to see my best friend! I know that I have abandonment issues 'cause of my past but I don't care. The past few months have been the best time of my life when I've been with Jiraiya-sensei, Karin and you! If you were in Konoha you would have friends, people would already admire you get to have a place to call home whereas if you're just a missing nin, you will always have to look over your back wondering if someone is about to kill you!"

"Just shut up alright! Even if it isn't as good as the _best place to live in the world _in Konoha, Kiri is still my home!"

"Fine! I see how it is, I knew I never should have become friends with you cause it just makes the pain of leaving easier to deal with if we aren't as close." Naruto said and without giving Suigetsu any time to respond, Naruto went back to his room. There was no doubt that he was going to be getting any sleep tonight.

The same could be said for Suigetsu as he didn't bother going back inside. Instead he just sat out on the pier and watched the water ripple beneath his feet.

**The next day**

_This is fucking bullshit _Suigetsu thought to himself as he skimmed a rock against the surface of the water at the pier. He knew what Naruto was doing and he hated it. Sure, he was being a polite all the time but Naruto was treating him as if he was meeting him for the first time.

It hurt. It hurt a lot.

Just because he said that he liked cutting things up whether it be people or relationships, he never thought that it would happen to himself. The pain that he was going through was like nothing he had experienced since he found out that his brother had died. Despite all the fights that they got into, Suigetsu loved Mangetsu just like most siblings do.

Knowing the pain that he went through when that happened, Suigetsu knew that it would be even worse this time around. Last time, he was only mourning the loss of one person; this time around there would be three people.

Despite all the constant teasing that he had given her over the past three months, the red haired girl was like the sister that he had never had. She wasn't a complete slut like every other girl and she actually had goals that he respected. It was also funny when she tried valiantly at insulting him back but she just wasn't as good at it.

Where Karin was like a sister, Naruto took the gender reversed spot of being like a brother. The sparring, the fighting, the hanging out… it all reminded him of the times when he was with his brother. It wasn't as if he viewed Naruto as a second coming of Mangetsu though in terms of replacing him, their personalities were too different.

Finally there was Jiraiya. As far as Suigetsu was concerned, Jiraiya was the father that he had never had. His biological father died on a mission so he and his brother had to pick up the pieces and take on the responsibilities of being the men in the house. He thought he didn't need a father as he couldn't really remember the man but that was until he met Jiraiya.

There was more to thank him for than the amount of words he could think of to actually thank him. Sure the training was awesome but what were just as awesome was all the life lessons that were littered through the down time. More important though, Jiraiya was the type of person who would willingly risk something as massive as international conflict just so that he could get his proud heritage back. It was something that he didn't know what to say to thank the man.

Then there was the peeking…_ Ahh yes, the peeking_. Suigetsu thought to himself with a perverse smile on his face. Jiraiya was the person who had introduced him to the best feature of his bloodline which didn't even know hot springs existed.

Hot spring water was almost as great as the naked women inside them.

Despite the path that his dirty mind was going down, it was at this point that Suigetsu realised that he didn't want to slice up the bonds that he had formed with the trio of shinobi. He wanted to have a pseudo family and friends.

_Plus, they did say that there will be mountains of pussy lining up at my door saying "Ooh Suigetsu-kun, we need you to slay all our moots!"_

Getting rid of those thoughts because there was a rise in his pants, Suigetsu waited a few minutes for the blood to stop congregating at his penis before going back into the house.

Dinner went well even though he had gotten used to the chicken breast, potato, yams, sweet potato and pasta, the fact that Jiraiya cooked it for him made it that much better. Well a shadow clone did it but it was the thought that counts…

Once all the food was down into his stomach, Suigetsu got everyone's attention. "Jiraiya-sensei, is it possible for me to join Konohagakure?" The last member of the Hozuki clan asked with nervousness flowing through him.

Before Jiraiya could even say anything, Naruto had gotten out of his seat and crash tackled his best friend to the ground, hugging him as hard as possible. There was a massive blush on his face as he thought that it was unbecoming and quickly released it.

"If I hadn't heard you and Karin going at it last night I would of thought you were gay." Suigetsu said getting up off the ground. He didn't even bother to look at the massive blushes that were on the faces of Naruto and Karin.

Jiraiya just stared at the two which made them feel uncomfortable. "All I will say is remember to double wrap it. Having to deal with a miniature version of you two would be hell on earth."

It was oddly comforting for Naruto and Karin to hear this.

"Getting back to you… "Jiraiya said as he stared down at Suigetsu and levelled his absolute most killing intent at the boy. He could see a bit of sweat rolling down the brow of his student.

Both Naruto and Karin could feel it and they too were nervous.

And then it was gone.

"Hahaha, you should have seen the look on your face!"

Realising that he had just had a practical joke played on him, Suigetsu grumbled. "You're an asshole sensei."

"Ahh stop complaining… let an old man have some fun." There was a grin on the face of Jiraiya that wasn't going away any time soon.

"You have a terrible sense of humour."

"Always with the complaining, but back to your previous question, sure, I don't see anything wrong with it."

"Wait… that's it? I mean I thought that there would be more to this than just that." Suigetsu questioned with a look of confusion on his face.

Jiraiya simply shrugged his shoulders. "Ehh, I know you're a good kid and that you're not a spy or anything like that. You're someone who just wants a place to call home with the people that you care about nearby."

Touched by his words, Suigetsu was at a loss for words so he settled for a simple "thank you Jiraiya-sensei,"

"Welcome to the group Suigetsu." Karin said with a bright smile on her face.

**Two days later**

"Alright kids, we're going to meet someone in the capital. I just got a message that my agent has sold the gold bars and managed to get 10 million dollars for them. He has it and he is waiting for us. He didn't want to risk taking it out of the city in case someone robbed him." Jiraiya stated to his students after breakfast.

Suigetsu was the first one to speak up. "Well then what the hell are we waiting for!? Come on let's go and get our money!" The boy said with emphasis. He didn't come from the richest family and that was putting it lightly so he wanted to get the money! Naruto and Karin were of the same mind as they too came from poor families especially Naruto.

Jiraiya could see where they were coming from because he was in the exact same position before he managed to become a Jonin and get a high, stable income; that became meaningless when Icha Icha became famous though.

"Alright, get your stuff ready, we'll go meet him. This is his last job as my agent before he goes on to own a civilian sports team. It's no surprise once you meet him why he's calling the team the Golds."

**Later that day**

"I still can't believe just how big this place is! It's bigger than anything I have ever seen." Karin said amazed at the buildings. Pretty much every single one was at least seven stories high.

"Yeah… The Hokage's tower is the tallest building in Konoha and that's only five stories tall." Naruto stated as he was just as impressed with what his eyes were taking in.

"There's also heaps of people here. I've never seen this many people in one place." Suigetsu said with his eyes wandering.

"Whereas Konoha is the military capital of the Land of Fire, Tokyo is the business capital of the Land of Fire. Anybody who wants to make a lot of money comes here."

The trio had come from the office of Jiraiya's agent Ari and it was now lunch time. "Alright kids, you guys have worked hard enough over the last few months so you can have whatever you can fit inside your stomach cheat meal on the house. Each of you gets a choice for where we go so there will be three cheat meals."

"Dibs going first!" Suigetsu quickly said before Naruto and Karin could get their opinions in.

"Okay, so where are we going then gaki?"

"I want to go to a seafood restaurant. Seafood is the best type of food out there!"

"No there not, pancakes are the best!" Karin shouted, trying to make her point.

Jiraiya rolled his eyes. "Well I guess we know where we are going next time. What about you gaki? Where do you want to go?"

After being put on the spot, Naruto didn't know what he wanted. After a minute to think things through though, there was only one choice. "I guess some ramen would be good."

**After lunch**

"That was the best ever! The seafood here is almost as good as the stuff back in Kiri."

"I must admit that was pretty good." Karin said as she used the napkin to wipe some of the thousand island sauce off of her face.

"I have never had crab before but I really liked it." Naruto stated with a small smile on his face.

"Yeah well my wallet doesn't like it… Apart from whale and blowfish, crab is one of the most expensive seafood delicacies." Jiraiya said in a childlike huff.

"As if money actually means anything to you Jiraiya-sensei, the movie which is coming out soon is going to get you tons of money." Naruto said in response

"Humph, ungrateful little kids, anyway there are some serious things that we need to discuss." Jiraiya said in a serious tone of voice which got all three of the aspiring shinobi to get serious as well.

"I spoke with Tsunade and told her about your wish to join Konoha. She said that if I believed you were trustworthy, then you can join." Before Jiraiya could say anymore Suigetsu cut him off.

"Wait, you mean that's it? I mean I know that you're a really strong shinobi and all but I thought that only a Kage is capable of making those decisions. Also, I thought that there would be some kind of probational period since I could potentially be a spy?"

"Are you a spy?"

"Well no…but they don't know that."

"Me and Tsunade have been best friends since we were six years old so we trust each other implicitly. I was going to be the Hokage but luckily I managed to get the witch to take the job for me."

"Sweet! Thanks for that Jiraiya-sensei."

"Ehh, no worries kid. Getting back to what I was saying before you so rudely interrupted me…" at this point Jiraiya levelled a glare at Suigetsu who merely grinned back. "How would you three like to make even more money?"

Suigetsu was quick to agree. Karin was nervous but she also wanted to make more money, hopefully as easily as what she previously did in Katabami. Naruto on the other hand was sceptical.

"How…?"

Jiraiya was impressed, "There's a thing called a global stock market here in Tokyo. Essentially what you do is you invest your money in business so you can buy a percentage of them. Then when those businesses become more valuable, you sell your stocks for a profit."

"But… there's also the chance that those businesses could fail right?"

"Yes there would be that… but I have a mission lined up for you three which will make it a guaranteed success." Jiraiya said with a grin on his face. Suigetsu thinking this through got a vicious smirk on his face, he was just thinking of all the damage he could do with the thunder fangs that were in his possession.

"There's a bit of diplomatic liaison that I have to do whilst I am here so I won't be able to help you out on this mission. Unlike the one that you went on before, this is going to be a lot more dangerous compared to Raiga."

"Raiga was as tough as Tora the cat…" Naruto said in a deadpan fashion. It was a joke that only Jiraiya got as Suigetsu and Karin weren't Konoha natives.

"Anyway, you never know which ears are listening so let's go to my house so that no one else can learn the insider trading information. If they suddenly did the exact same thing as you three, then the profits that you guys will get will be less."

Nodding the Naruto, Karin and Suigetsu went outside to wait for Jiraiya who went and paid the bill. From there they followed the Sannin to his luxurious apartment at the top of a building which overlooked the city.

"Konoha has been ignoring the problems of wave country so that we didn't cause an international incident which could lead to a whole host of problems. We can't ignore it any longer as the shipping magnate who essentially runs the city is trying to work his way into the land of fire and more importantly Konoha's profits.

To give you a bit of a back story, this guy on the surface looks like a reasonable guy but underneath that, he is as screwed up in the head as they come. This guy doesn't want the world to know that under his shipping business, he is a rat who does child sex slave trafficking, drug trafficking and anything else that is illegal that someone wants to buy; he will bring it into the country for a price."

"That's disgusting! I don't even need the motivation of money to do this mission, I'd happily do it for free." The red haired girl said with a look of rage on her face. Both Naruto and Suigetsu readily agreed with her.

"Getting back to the original topic, there's a rival shipping company which is at the moment an insect in terms of threat that Gato is laughing at. Eventually the fun will die out and he will kill the people operating a rival business to his own. That is where we come in."

"So you're suggesting that we invest money to buy shares in this rival shipping company and then go take care of the bad guy so that there's no threat for the company that we put the money in to grow." Naruto deduced as put the pieces together in his mind.

"Yes, I'm surprised you got that so quickly. Because Nami no Kuni is a small-ish island, the main industry that creates the most jobs for the villagers is the shipping industry as it is a good stop over point for large ships. It's a guaranteed way to make a lot of money."

"Since the country is so poor, it costs very little in comparison to other companies to invest in."

"That sounds easy enough, how much does it cost?"

"Well first you would have to pay a lawyer to write up a contract so that there are no loop holes. The going cost for a lawyer to do something like this is 15 thousand."

"That seems like a lot just for somebody to write up a few pieces of paper." Karin said stating her opinion with Naruto and Suigetsu nodding in agreement.

Jiraiya snorted. "Heh, that's nothing. Because what we are doing is on under the table insider dealings, you're going to get the same lawyer to write up another contract. That's another 15 thousand."

"Also you're going to have to buy the business of the guy who owns it. You're really lucky in this part since Nami no Kuni is very poor so you should be able to simply walk up to the man, offer him 60 thousand in cold hard cash and he will sign the contract for you.

Oh and I almost forgot, according to my spy network, this Gato guy has a former missing ninja from Kirigakure and his accomplice as Gato's bodyguard. I don't know who it is; I just know he is a Jonin, no idea on his partner though."

**Two days later**

Having gotten the two contracts written up, Suigetsu said he was going outside to experience a big city for a bit. What Jiraiya and Karin didn't know was that Naruto had drawn up a tracking seal which Suigetsu could place on something or in this case someone and use another one via chakra pulses to track it down.

After all, they didn't need any loose ends who could babble about what they were doing… it was too bad that the man had already stored the money somewhere or Suigetsu would have taken that too.

Since they would be seeing him soon, the goodbye did not take long at all and the trio of shinobi made their way out to the Land of Waves. With the knowledge of where they were going, it only took 3 hours to make their way over to the island.

First stop was for business.

Knocking on the door of the run down house, Naruto waited for someone to open the door. It took a bit and even when it opened, it only opened a fraction. "Who is it and what do you want?"

"I am a foreigner from the Land of Fire and I am someone who likes to make investments. I have seen your company on the stock exchange in the hopes of getting some capital for your business to grow. I however have a different offer that you might be willing to hear."

The door opened and the aging man was baffled. This so called investor was no more than a teenager. It must have been some sort of scam. "No, get lost kid, whatever it is you're offering, I don't want it." _This kid is no doubt here because he was sent by Gatou._

Just as he was about to close his door, Naruto quickly put his hand between the door and frame. "Please reconsider, I would hate for you to make the biggest mistake of your life. I am willing to offer you sixty thousand dollars in cash just for the owner of the business to change. You will still have your job, but my company will now own your business and get the profits that it makes."

_This kid must be fucking crazy to carry around that kind of money! Maybe I can steal it from him and force him out of my house! _Keeping up appearances as best he could, the grumpy middle aged man replied to Naruto. "Fine… come inside but I want to see the money first before any negotiations are even discussed."

Nodding, Naruto waited for the door to be opened and he walked into the house. It looked like his old apartment albeit slightly larger in size. After moving everything on the table, Naruto pulled out of his pocket a stack of sixty notes. Each of them had on the front the denomination of one thousand dollars.

The man couldn't believe his eyes, right there in front of him was the largest amount of money that he had ever seen. He was desperate for the money so he would do anything for it.

Charging in what he thought would be a surprising move, the man launched a fist at Naruto. It was too bad for him that he was fighting a shinobi as his attack was quickly countered and before he knew it, he was lying down flat on his back. That wasn't the worst thing because right in front of his eyes was this shiny blue ball that looked really dangerous!

"I'm sorry! Please don't hurt me!" The man cowered in fear. It was only now that he realised that this kid was a ninja and that meant he was up shit creek without a paddle.

"And why should I?" Naruto questioned in a commanding tone of voice.

"I'm really sorry! It's just our country was in a really bad state and I thought that the offer was too good to be true so I tried to surprise you. I swear I didn't know you were a shinobi. I thought you were with Gatou!"

In response, Naruto got rid of the rasengan and lifted the man up with a singular hand and placed him back on his feet. "I'm not here because of Gatou, well actually I am but not for that reason. His reign of terror has gone on for too long and two friends and myself are going to put an end to him."

"You can't do that! You would be killed! Gatou is too powerful, he has hundreds of men."

"I am a powerful shinobi in my own right. I could kill one hundred civilian thugs in a matter of seconds." Naruto said. He had come a long way from the times where he would say that he was the greatest but he didn't like people thinking that he was weak.

"Wow, shinobi are really that strong!?" the man questioned with obvious awe and astonishment on his face. It was obvious to Naruto that this man had never delt with shinobi before.

"Yes, now about that investment that we originally planned on talking about…" It took a matter of minutes for the contract to be signed and now Naruto, Karin and Suigetsu were the proud owners of a shipping company.

It was now time to get back to his friends who were walking around town and complete phase two of the mission.

"Everything all good?" Karin questioned her boyfriend who nodded. The nerves were getting to her more than what she showed.

"Alright then, I've got a position on the Jonin level chakra signature and it's not that far away." Karin said and then made off in the direction the enemy. Suigetsu and Naruto were quick to follow.

After making it past the forest, the trio of shinobi found themselves staring at a large building near the ocean. From what they had scouted beforehand, behind the warehouse there was a mansion which they presumed Gato was. Suigetsu being the type of person that he was, decided that he wanted to have a little bit of fun. He wanted to have an entrée before the main meal.

Walking up to the front gates they were stopped by two large men, one carried a sword whilst the other had an axe. "Just for you three finding out about this place, we're going to have to kill you." They said in what they thought was a menacing tone of voice.

"Oh, I am going to have so much fun today!" Suigetsu voiced with a sinister grin on his face. Within two seconds, the gate guards were dead, sliced up into multiple pieces.

The red haired girl grimaced at the sight but knew that death was a part of being a shinobi; it was better him than her. Karin also knew that today would be the day that she would kill a person due to the strategy formed by her partner Naruto who was in charge for this mission.

Using his frame which was big for his size, Suigetsu smashed down the thin metal doors with his shoulder. Inside the warehouse was Gato's personal army of 300 men.

Everyone turned around and had their attention at the door which had just been busted down. They got to see the sight of three kids staring right back at them.

Naruto was the first to start the proceedings by going through some hand seals. Karin combined with her boyfriend as she also started doing hand seals.

"Fuuton: Atsugai! (Wind Release: Pressure Damage!)" Naruto called out loudly. As he was doing this Karin also called out the name of her jutsu.

"Katon: Zukokku! (Fire Release: Searing Migraine!" The wind and fire jutsus combined to launch an absolutely devastating attack on the men in front of them.

Most of the bandits didn't have any time to react before the incoming inferno hit them. Those that did, they tried to get out of the way of the massive fire; key word there is tried. The blaze simply approached them faster than what their own legs could run. 80% died or were burned to the point where they couldn't move and instead just had to be content with the fact of lying on the ground.

The bandits at the back, having just seen what these kids had done to all of their comrades formed a unison and started charging at Karin, Naruto and Suigetsu.

Unsealing the thunder fangs which were respectively on each wrist, Suigetsu grinned, this was going to be good training practice since he hadn't used the fangs outside of training with Naruto.

Speaking of the blonde haired boy, Naruto unsealed his chokuto which was made and then subsequently given to him by the snake clan. He too had things that he wanted to field test before unleashing them in a real life or death situation.

Karin knew what her role in this mission was and patiently waited for an opening to appear.

It was a battle of quantity vs. quality as two shinobi ran towards the group of sixty. Naruto was channelling wind chakra into his blade to make the cuts go through cleaner. On the other hand Suigetsu used more power and speed in his swings since he had no skill in lightning manipulation. It was a showcase of finesse vs. brutality.

The glorified thugs didn't stand a chance. Naruto and Suigetsu were simply too skilled and too quick as they carved up the civilians wielding weapons in front of them.

Not one of the sixty remaining bandits managed to get even a scratch that didn't break the surface of skin on either Naruto or Suigetsu. It was only then that three ninjas' shunshined into the room. The leader was the one who was in the garb of a hunter ninja associated with the mist village. On either side of the hunter nin, was the identical twin brothers that made up the demon brothers'; two ex Kirigakure chunin who betrayed their home.

"I am taking these three; you can have whatever is left over." Suigetsu demanded the moment that he saw the insignia for the Kiri Hunter Nin.

There was a grumble of dissatisfaction but eventually Naruto relented. "Fine but if the next person is one of the seven swordsmen, we aren't switching back." Naruto stated to which Suigetsu took his chances.

"There's more chance of it not being one of them so okay, I'll agree to that."

The two demon brothers' having heard this got angry, they didn't like the fact that this guy thought that he could take fight let alone kill both them and Haku. What they did was charge at him with the chain activated so that they could slice him up.

Suigetsu didn't even bother move when they were charging at him. Timing it to perfection, Suigetsu raised one of the thunder fangs and slammed it down at the ground. What made the timing so great was that he had managed to capture one of the links in the process.

Thanks to the chain being anchored to the ground, both Gozu and Meizu got yanked back when the chain simply couldn't extend any further. Quickly, they both disengaged the chain so that they could go on a dual offensive.

Meizu was the first to react to the situation. Meizu launched the claw which was on his right hand straight at the stomach of Suigetsu.

Blocking the incoming gauntlet with the thunder fang, Suigetsu realised just how much the training Jiraiya-sensei had done with him in strength benefitted him. Before he would have had to either dodge the attack or parry it away. Now there was another option to add to that list.

Since he had used one of the fangs for the chain and the other one for Meizu's gauntlet, there was an opening for Gozu to strike. What the man didn't expect to happen was that Suigetsu activated his bloodline and turned into water which fell down to the ground.

Dodging the attack by letting it pass through him, Suigetsu turned his body back from its water state and found himself in a one handed push up position. Catching the falling thunder fang, Suigetsu swung it as hard as it could and it cleanly sliced through the ankle of Meizu.

Going from a one handed push up to a crouching position without letting his knees touch the concrete floor. From there, Suigetsu launched into a back flip; pushing up with his quadriceps and hamstrings powerfully.

"Ahh!" Meizu screamed out in pain as he looked down to see his ankle not connected to his leg with a lot of blood coming out at the end point.

Hearing the scream from his brother, Gozu looked to see what was wrong. What he bear witness to horrified him and in response he charged at the enemy who crippled his brother.

Seeing the incoming attack fuelled by rage, Suigetsu swung his sword as hard as he could dual handed. It connected with the gauntlet and shattered the claw. Rolling his shoulders with his swing, Suigetsu swung his sword continuing the motion in a diagonal motion which connected with the neck and came out at the hip.

Gozu was dead immediately as the blade went through his spinal column as well as multiple organs including one of his lungs.

Meizu pulled out a kunai from his pocket and hurried to throw it straight at his enemy. Parrying to the side the incoming kunai, Suigetsu charged at Meizu and stabbed him with the fang in his hand right through the heart. Channelling chakra, the special property of the sword automatically converted it into lighting.

The lightening raced through the dead body of Meizu and it started convulsing as it slid off the sword as it fell to the ground. It was as if the formerly alive Meizu was having an epileptic fit.

"I see, so you're a member of the Hozuki clan." The Hunter Nin said stating the obvious.

"And you're one of the blooding purging fucks who can go get fucked by a cactus!"

Instead of saying anything, the Hunter Nin stared down Suigetsu. It was then at this point that Zabuza appeared in the room via a shunshin. Upon seeing what was causing all of the commotion, Zabuza spotted someone from his past. "Oh so it's you who's causing all this little Suigetsu-chan and I see you've already met Raiga.

Turning to Naruto, Suigetsu spoke up. "Aww crap, I know we agreed upon it but can we pretty please swap, I so want to kick the shit out of Zabuza-sempai."

"No we agreed that you could have those three and I could get whoever else comes."

"To think a gaki like you has the confidence to fight me let alone think that he's going to win. Alright then gaki, I'll humour you, Haku take care of Suigetsu-chan whilst I have some fun with this midget." Zabuza said in a bored fashion.

"Hai Zabuza-sama."

"Suiton: Kirigakure no jutsu (Water Release: Hiding in the mist jutsu." Zabuza called out as a thick layer of mist appeared in the warehouse.

Seeing this as the perfect opportunity, Karin made her move.

Waiting until his girlfriend was where she needed to be, Naruto went made a one handed jutsu "Fuuton: Daitoppa (Wind Release: Great Breakthrough)" Naruto called out as the massive gust of wind which broke all of the windows in the warehouse and subsequently sent the mist out leaving everything plainly visible.

"Well aren't you just a little shit." Zabuza said with a look of annoyance when he addressed the blonde haired boy.

"Suiton: Mizu Ryūiki no jutsu (Water Release: Water Basin Jutsu) Zabuza called out as he drew the moisture in the air from his previous jutsu and used it to so that there was enough water in the building so that it went up to his ankle. Despite using a fair amount of chakra, Zabuza knew that benefit of not having to waste any more chakra in terms of drawing water for jutsus.

It was a standoff; both sets of shinobi were waiting for the other one to make the first move. It was Suigetsu who broke first as he charged five steps so that he could pick up the other sword. In a surprising move though, Suigetsu sealed a blade into each respective seal on his wrists. Pulling out the katana from the sheath on his back, the purple eyed boy got ready. If this Hunter Nin was almost as strong as Zabuza, then he would have to fight at his best and he couldn't do that with the fangs.

"Smart move, too bad it's not going to do you any good little brother of Mangetsu.

**With Karin**

Having made her way out under the guise of all the mist, Karin made her way out the door in which she went in and then started running to the mansion. Thanks to her sensor jutsu, she could tell what she assumed to be Gato's two bodyguards on the bottom floor of the house whilst Gato himself was on the top floor balcony. In his room was what she could guess a prostitute or even worse a sex slave.

Using chakra to climb up the walls, Karin looked over the top of her target and started going through hand seals. His body went ramrod straight as a genjutsu took over his mind. Dropping down from the roof, Karin used the blunt end of a kunai to strike Gato into the land of unconsciousness.

Walking into the room, Karin took her top off so that the only thing that was covering her breasts was her bra. Spotting the black haired girl, Karin quickly tossed her the top as she was otherwise in the nude.

"Here, put that on. I have just knocked Gato unconscious and you now have a window of time to escape." Instead of responding in a positive emotion, the woman sat on the bed crying unresponsive.

Having to clothe the girl, Karin dressed her after taking her pants off so she was in her bra and panties only. Quickly pulling out a scroll from her clothes, Karin got some new clothes out and quickly changed into them. picking up the girl, Karin took her outside; she could deal with her later; there were more important things to deal with at the present time.

Five minutes later, and Gato now found himself waking up slowly with a pen in hand and sitting behind the desk in his office. "What happened…? I don't remember being in here. The last thing that I remember was sitting on the balcony." Gato grumbled to himself as groggily rested his forearm on the table.

"And that's going to be your last memory." An ominous tone came into his ears and as he turned his head up to see just who had said that, Gato saw red and that was it.

After getting Gato to do what she needed of him, Karin had no further use for the man and that meant that she had to get rid of him. He was too much of a scum human being to deserve living another minute. Bracing herself as much as possible, Karin pulled out a kunai from her holster and positioned it right above the carotid artery in the neck.

Gato was still under the influence of the genjutsu and that gave Karin the time to take a deep breath and sliced the artery which made blood pour out of the wound; thankfully none of it went on Karin or her clothes.

The cutting of the skin and artery sent messages of pain to the brain of Gato which made his body forcibly break the genjutsu. It was too little too late though as the damage had already been done.

In a matter of seconds from free from the genjutsu, Gatou was dead with blood pouring onto the table beneath him.

Looking at what she had just done, Karin told herself that if she didn't do it, then he would continue doing horrendous deeds. Taking her eyes away from the sight, Karin walked out onto the balcony and looked at the document in her hands.

It was a document for the asset transfer from everything that the Gatou Shipping Corporation owned into the hands of the Wave shipping Company. Everything from ships to warehouses to cargo… everything that Gato and his company owned was now in the hands of three teenagers.

**With Naruto and Suigetsu**

Pulling his friend out of the incoming attack from Zabuza who was swung his sword down in a vertical motion, Naruto also went through hand seals quickly. The incoming senbon needles from Haku didn't stand a chance of piercing through the hair which encompassed both Naruto and Suigetsu.

Jumping in the air so that they didn't get hit by the incoming swing of the executioner's blade, Naruto went through hand seals again. "Sen'eijashu! (Hidden Shadow Snake Hands!)" Naruto called out as he fired off the jutsu from the sleeve of his kimono.

Naruto launched the snakes right at the Hunter Ninja.

What had started off as a dual one on one fight quickly turned into a two on two fight which showcased all four shinobies' team work capabilities.

The Hunter Nin managed to dodge most of the incoming snakes. Unfortunately for him, there was one which managed to lodge one of its fangs into the Hunter Nin's forearm.

Grunting at the pain that he felt, the hunter Nin didn't have the time to dawdle as Suigetsu had flung his sword right at him. As he dodged the incoming attack, the hunter Nin watched how the sword of his master was about to slice right through Suigetsu. That was until he activated his bloodline and dropped into the water below.

Popping out of the water back in his normal form was something that the Hunter Nin had seen but the sheer speed in which he travelled the distance to appear behind him swinging the sword was a surprise. Bursting off the water as fast as he could, the Hunter Nin barely managed to dodge the incoming attack.

As this was happening, Naruto was channelling large amounts of refined wind chakra into his sword just so that he could waste time for an opportunity to present itself. It was working somewhat as the blonde haired boy managed to cause a few cuts along one of the fabled blades.

"Hyoton: Sensatsu Suishō (Ice Release: Thousand Water Needles of Death.)" Haku called out as she went through hand seals and used the water below. Thanks to the technique that his master had used before, this one took very little chakra to use.

It didn't matter though as Suigetsu once again used his bloodline and turned into water. This was what Haku had been waiting for though, sprinting when she saw this happen, Haku rushed over to where Suigetsu used his bloodline limit and placed her hands on the water's surface.

Channelling a large portion of his chakra into the water, Haku tried to freeze the water so that it would also freeze Suigetsu.

Realising what the Hunter Nin was trying to do, Suigetsu quickly changed his body back into its normal form although he was now shivering.

Meanwhile as this was happening, Naruto who was channelling Fuuton chakra into his right hand which his sword was in started doing hand seals with the other. Thinning his lips so that they were like a thin oval, Naruto thought the name of the jutsu which made it easier to use. _Fūton: Kazekiri no Jutsu (Wind Release: Wind Cutter Jutsu_

Naruto had only found out about this jutsu when Suigetsu, Karin and Jiraiya went on their mission. Despite that, he tried his best to learn it even if it was slightly unrefined.

Since Zabuza was still in the middle of his swing when he saw Naruto go through hand seals, he didn't have much time to react. Bringing his sword up in a horizontal motion to dodge the white blades, Zabuza watched in muted fascination and horror at how the jutsu started cutting into his sword. It managed to cut all the way through the blade but thankfully for his sake it fizzled out into a powerful wind without the cutting properties.

Seeing just how much damage had been done, Zabuza jumped over towards the dead bodies from the combination jutsu of Naruto and Karin. As Zabuza sliced open one of the burnt bodies, Naruto watched in just as much fascination at the blade and how it turned the iron in the blood into part of itself.

"Yeah, that's the special ability of the executioner's blade, no matter how much damage the blade takes, it is back to being perfect in about a litre of blood." Suigetsu said as he appeared next to Naruto hopping up and down to get the blood flow and heat back into his body.

In a noticeably lower tone of voice, Naruto spoke to his teammate. "Those snakes that hit the Hunter Nin had poison in their fangs. If you can keep his heart rate up, the poison will spread around the body much quicker.

It was a catch twenty two situation for Haku who was standing beside Zabuza, he had every assumption that the snake that bit her had some kind of poison on its fangs. There were two options which she could choose from for the remaining fight.

Option one was fighting at full speed so that he didn't have to hold back. The problem with this was that it would shorten the amount of time that he had to finish off the fight. The more as time went on, it would give an advantage to the enemy; what type of advantage he had no idea, but it couldn't have been good.

Option two was fighting at a slower pace so that the poison wouldn't spread throughout his body as quickly and thus give him more time to fight. The downside to this though was that it forced Haku to move at a slower speed and at the moment he was only just slightly faster than Suigetsu and the same speed as the blonde.

_Suiton: Mizudeppō no Jutsu (Water Release: Water Gun Jutsu) _Suigetsu mentally said to himself as he fired off the three bullets right at the Hunter Nin.

Having seen Suigetsu previously use the jutsu, the Hunter Nin knew just how much damage the jutsu could cause and promptly dodged the incoming attacks. He didn't have time to catch his breath as both the blonde and Suigetsu were charging right at himself and Zabuza.

It was two minutes into the frenetic fight that things started to take their toll on Haku. His vision was slightly blurry, the start of a headache was coming on and he felt a little bit queasy.

Having seen just how accurate the Hunter Nin had been previously with the senbon needles, he was surprised that they were now thrown and he didn't have to move to dodge the needles._ The poison is kicking hard! _Suigetsu thought to himself with a grin on his face. It was now time for him to go on the true offensive. Before he had just been trying to fight at the highest intensity but now he could co-ordinate his attacks a bit better at the sacrifice for a bit of pace.

Where Haku's bloodline severely countered Suigetsu's in that she could freeze him solid, the best jutsu that Haku had in his arsenal Suigetsu could make look like an absolute joke by turning himself into water and moving away. It was a real glass half full glass half empty situation.

Going through a mirror and appearing in another one made Haku stumble when he took the step out of it. Suigetsu saw this and charged at the enemy. Going through hand seals once more, Suigetsu shot another water bullet right at Haku. following that up, Suigetsu threw a kunai to the right which forced Haku to dodge to his own right unless he wanted to take the brunt of a kunai.

Doing just that, Haku dodged to his own right and thankfully was able to make a water clone which took the damage from the incoming swing. It didn't stop Suigetsu though from following up from pushing forward with his calves and quadriceps at a fast pace and launching a vicious kick to the stomach of Haku.

Grimacing in pain at the damage done the Hunter Nin bent down to one knee. _I must not fail Zabuza-sama!_

"Heh, I bet you hate this don't you, losing to a bloodline shinobi, it must tear you up inside." Suigetsu proudly boasted.

"If you have time to boast then you have time to finish him off! Hurry up and kill him so you can help me over here!" Naruto shouted to his friend as he was getting a real beating at the moment. The only thing that was in Naruto's favour was that his cuts weren't life threatening or permanent. That being said the large gash on the triceps which weren't responsible for holding his sword in an upright position didn't fucking hurt!

Seeing that Haku was in bad shape, Zabuza knew that he had to end this quickly unless he wanted his only companion to die. Similar to the Nidaime Hokage although in not as speedy a fashion, Zabuza shortened the water dragon jutsu to a handful of seals from the forty that it normally took.

As he was calling out the name of the jutsu, Zabuza watched out of his periphery vision how the jutsu formed itself in the water before launching at Naruto.

In a sudden movement, Haku who was still kneeling on the water's surface convulsed and lurched her body forward as he vomited due to the poison circulating throughout his body.

"Kuchiyose: Rashomon! (Summoning Jutsu: Rashomon!) Naruto called out loudly and firmly planted his hand on the ground bringing up the gates of hell. Knowing what this would cause, before the gate was even fully up, Naruto sprinted as fast as he could so that he ran around the size of the gate.

"Hari Jizo! (Needle Hair!) Naruto called out as he was flooded with a rush of adrenaline at the sight of Zabuza charging at an unsuspecting Suigetsu. "SUIGETSU!" Naruto shouted out loudly in desperation.

Hearing the cry from his teammate, Suigetsu instantly activated his bloodline and he was extremely grateful for Naruto giving him the shout out. Despite having trained for three months on being able to transform his body into its water state much faster, there was still a little bit of delay. Ducking in conjunction, Suigetsu barely managed to avoid the attack with half of his hair getting cut off on one side whilst the other half turned into water as the blade went through it.

Wrapping his rapidly extending hair around the Hunter Nin's neck that had just recently vomited his guts out, Naruto gripped tight yanked the shinobi head first right into one of the spikes of the Rashomon gate. Going in head first, it was not a pretty sight when the spike pierced through the skin and bone to directly attack the brain. The inertia of the attack jarred the neck into of Haku compressed the neck as the legs were still moving whilst the head was not.

Not only did the Hyoton user have a pierced frontal lobe and cerebral cortex but also had a broken neck due to the whiplash of his abrupt end.

Haku was dead on impact.

Seeing the gruesome death of someone that whilst not admitting it to anyone, even himself it struck a nerve inside the former member of the seven swordsmen. Going a rampage, Zabuza doubled the speed and power in his swings which were aimed directly at Suigetsu.

Just from blocking the first swing, Suigetsu knew that he had done the wrong thing as the vibrations going up his arm were immense. The attack from the large weapon even managed to severe the steel of his own blade which reduced to two halves of a whole. Instead of trying to block the next swing, Suigetsu just used his dodged the jutsu by turning his body back into water.

Knowing just how good the bloodline was, Zabuza launched himself up high in the air so that he didn't get caught out by Suigetsu reappearing and slicing his ankles. Standing upside down on the roof of the warehouse, Zabuza started going through hand seals.

It took a while since he wasn't as familiar with this jutsu since it was more Kisame's style but it was very hard to beat in terms of raw power. "Suiton: Dai Bakusui Shōha! (Water Release: Great Exploding Water Colliding Wave!" Zabuza shouted as he launched a massive torrent of water out from his mouth and down at the ground below right where Suigetsu had been.

Seeing his enemy going through the seals, Naruto sprinted and then launched himself up in the air at the enemy. As he was in the traveling at a fast pace to Zabuza, Naruto held out his hand and started channelling some chakra into his open palm.

Seeing the blonde haired boy who had just killed Haku charge at him with an unknown jutsu, Zabuza didn't have time to do anything but bring up his blade to block the attack.

Much to his surprise, the grinding motion of the attack persevered through the metal and the friction caused from the resulting pressure made the blade snap in half. Both of the shinobi were lucky that the metal which shot off from the damage done to it did not hit either one of them as it could have been fatal.

As he was still on the offensive, Naruto swung his sword with wind chakra going through it.

Using his vast amount of experience over Naruto, Zabuza pushed off the ceiling and with the help of gravity managed to dodge the incoming attack. Naruto did the same thing and fell down to the water below five metres away from the black haired man.

"Just who are you kid? Suigetsu I know was a prodigy as a kid but who in the blue hell are you?" Zabuza demanded as he didn't think there was another kid in the world the same age as Haku and Suigetsu who could keep up with them.

"I am Naruto Uzumaki from Konoha."

"An Uzumaki from Konoha huh… I thought you all got wiped out in the war." Zabuza said referring to the clan that Naruto came from.

"My mother was sent to Konoha a few years before their demise." Naruto replied in a short, clipped tone of voice.

"And anyway I thought that the tree hugging hippy village didn't produce proper ninjas. I'm surprised that you are even capable of killing someone let alone the way you did Haku in such a fashion."

Naruto was confused, he wasn't sure whether or not that was an insult to his village or a compliment? In the end he decided it was probably a bit of both.

"Also what is a Konoha ninja doing with a Missing Ninja from Kirigakure?"

"I'm on a mission to kill Gato. We met up and he said that he would help out as long as we help him out in killing you so he can have the sword." Naruto lied but it wasn't as if Zabuza needed to know what was actually happening.

"Suiton: Gōsuiwan no Jutsu! (Water Release: Great Water Arm Jutsu!) Suigetsu shouted as he appeared out the water and wrapped both of his arms underneath each respective arm of Zabuza Yanking them back, Suigetsu held Zabuza's arms so they almost touched at the elbows behind his back.

This rough action which caught the former ninja of the hidden mist village forced the executioner's blade out of his hand. "Naruto! Now!" Suigetsu screamed loudly albeit a little bit slower than normal.

Whilst he hadn't learnt any new jutsus, one thing that Jiraiya drilled into all of his students including Minato was to use what you had to the absolute pinnacle of its potential. Four months ago he could only use the jutsu in one arm, now he could use it in both and it was this added strength on top of his hard training that prevented Zabuza from breaking free from the hold.

Doing just that, Naruto formed a rasengan in the palm of his hand and charged at Zabuza. Seeing the incoming whirling ball of death, Zabuza had an odd sense of déjà vu which he had no idea why.

Naruto thrusted the jutsu right into where the heart was. First the shirt got disintegrated and then layers upon layers of skin. For what it was worth, Zabuza didn't even utter a noise when he felt the excruciating pain. It was when it started disintegrating the ribs which protected the heart that the black haired man grunted.

Finally, with the last bit of resistance, the jutsu connected with the muscle on the left part of his chest cavity and when the rasengan hit it, the death was instant.

It was sickening, blood exploded open in all directions and some of it landed right on the face of Naruto Uzumaki. Bringing the rasengan back, Naruto let the jutsu dissipate.

Seeing that the damage was done, Suigetsu dropped the body of his former sempai and clutched his head. "Ahh this concussion hurts like a bitch."

This was the scene that Karin walked into the warehouse to see. "Wow, you guys sure had some fun in here." Karin noted as she saw the body of Haku still impaled onto the spike.

"Yeah, can you give me some aspirin? My head is killing me." Suigetsu said not bothering to look at the newcomer. The Hozuki was coming to terms with the fact that he himself had not been strong enough to take out Zabuza by himself; it was only down to the superior teamwork of himself and Naruto which got them over the edge.

_I have to get stronger if I want to face up against Kisame, there's no way that I could even hope to fight him at the level that I am at._

Where Suigetsu was looking at the negatives of what had just happened, Naruto was looking at the positives. _We just took down the second strongest member of the Seven Swordsmen. This shows that we have the skills to fight toe to toe with A-class ninjas. All we need is to get more experience which the ANBU will definitely provide._

"Here you go Suigetsu-kun." Karin said handing him two small tablets before going over to her boyfriend. Despite having chosen to not continue in the medical field, Karin was still the designated medic amongst the team.

"Do you need me to bandage your arm Naruto-kun?" the red haired girl questioned as she saw the deep cut into the back of his arm.

"No, the Kyubi has stopped all the bleeding and now the skin is slowly reforming." Naruto replied although he did wince in the process when she touched the damaged muscle.

"Okay then Naruto-kun, but at least let me use some disinfectant on the wound." Karin insisted.

"Alright then." Naruto said although he didn't know just how much the disinfectant would hurt. A large hiss later and the deed was done.

Getting up to his feet, Suigetsu didn't bother walking on top of the water and instead trudged through it over to the downed blade which was completely broken in half.

Picking up the blade, Suigetsu walked over to the downed bandits and like before, cut open one of the bodies and got the blade soaked in blood so that it would rebuild itself. Once he got back to Naruto and Karin, the blonde spoke up. "Our mission is done. Let's go back to the town and tell everyone that Gatou is dead and that the Wave Shipping Company is now hiring." Naruto commanded to his two friends.

It was job well done.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's note: This ends the Naruto outside of Konoha arc. Hope you liked the fight scene as I thought it was a fairly unique approach.<strong>

**PS I hate people who beg for reviews or even worse hold out uploading until a certain amount of reviews have been reached. It's like liking your own status on Facebook or sucking your own dick.**


	34. About a man who was too afraid

"So this is the famous tree hugging village." A male figure said as he stared down the village gates from afar. Said man was Suigetsu Hozuki, wielder of the Executioner's blade.

Suigetsu was wearing a tight black sleeveless top which hugged like a second skin so much so that you could define where his pectorals ended and his stomach started. Due to all of the recent training that he had done with his new toy, Suigetsu's hands were covered in bandages up to his forearms. The added side effect of this was that it made people when they looked at him they noticed his arms. For a fourteen year old they were massive. They weren't exactly defined but you could easily tell that there was a large amount of muscle underneath them.

Since Suigetsu needed much more freedom to properly move as a ninja, it meant that his legs muscles weren't on display in the black pants. To finish the look off the white haired boy had a pair of standard shinobi sandals which had the hems of his trousers wrapped so they didn't drag along the ground.

Out of everything though, nothing even came close to comparing for the title of first thing noticed quite like the massive sword resting on shoulder did.

"You know… this is going to be your home so you'd just be insulting yourself." Naruto called out to his friend. "And seal that thing away, there's no need to cause an easily avoidable headache.

"Yes mum…" Suigetsu replied in a condescending fashion.

Naruto merely rolled his eyes at this and didn't bother to give any further of a reaction. Instead of giving Suigetsu the attention which was what he wanted, Naruto turned his attention and looked at his girlfriend. There she was dressed in a relatively tight fitting cotton collared white shirt. She had a white singlet underneath that so if someone managed to see through her top, they wouldn't see anything that she wanted to show.

To complete the look she had on a black skirt which went down past her knees combined with a pair of low heels. After all, she wanted to make a good first impression.

"Come on gaki's, it's time to make things official. Let's go and see the witch." Jiraiya commented which got the three shinobi back on track.

Five minutes later at a walking pace, the quartet of shinobi arrived at the gate guards' desk. "Halt! State your name and your purpose for entering Konoha." Kotetsu stated in a formal tone of voice.

"Jiraiya of the Densetsu no Sannin; Returning from a mission." Jiraiya said whilst handing out his identification and official mission papers. After it all checked out, Naruto handed his own over to which the both of them got the seal of approval.

Karin and Suigetsu got a little nervous at this point. They didn't know what to say. Thankfully Jiraiya took control of the situation. "These guys are with me. We're going straight to the Hokage's office." It was obvious that Jiraiya was trying to get the gate guards to waver their entrance.

In the end, after five minutes of deliberation, the two ninjas relented and let them through. Kotetsu and Izumo really didn't want to get on the bad side of one of the Sannin. Plus, if Jiraiya was around, it wasn't as if they could do anything bad right…?

Jiraiya being Jiraiya entered through the window and his three students followed him. Karin felt weird entering the room in such a fashion whilst Suigetsu couldn't give a rat's arse.

The two shinobi were in for a rude surprise when they found Tsunade, the Godaime Hokage of Konoha lying face down on the table out for the count. _Really, this is the Hokage? _They both thought in unison.

All Naruto could do was hang his head in shame.

Jiraiya however was a different breed of human. He had a big grin on his face. Walking to the side of the chair which Tsunade was sitting in, Jiraiya roughly grabbed her in a massive bear hug and lifted her out of the seat. "I'M THE BOOGEY MAN… AND I'M COMING TO GETCHA!" he said in a frightening voice.

"AHHHH!" Tsunade screamed very much like her apprentice. Much was the surprise that she almost wee'd herself. Launching an elbow as a reflex action, it viciously connected with the stomach of Jiraiya. Even without the help of her super strength, a considerable amount of damage was done.

"Hahaha, you should have seen the look on your face!" Jiraiya said as he dropped Tsunade back onto her feet.

After realising what had happened, Tsunade quickly had a look of utter fury on her face. Launching a punch at twenty five per cent, Tsunade connected it in the chest of Jiraiya who was too busy laughing his ass off.

That look of fury didn't leave her face for even a second as she stared down at Jiraiya who was on the ground.

"Totally worth it." He grunted as he got back up to his feet.

"You never told us that the Hokage was hottie sensei!" There was a dead silence in the room when Suigetsu said this.

"Excuse me!"

"You know when Jiraiya-sensei said you were his teammate, I expected you to maybe be an average milf at best but you're a total babe." Suigetsu said with a grin on his face.

"Jiraiya!" Tsunade screamed. She definitely did not like the sounds of things. This new kid that she had been informed about was a miniature Jiraiya and that was not something that she wanted to deal with.

Moving over to his students, Jiraiya spoke up. "Ehh, 'Nade's not as hot as she likes to make everyone think. Underneath the genjutsu she's looks just like her personality; a withered old bitch."

Picking up a stapler from her desk, Tsunade threw the object right at the head of Jiraiya, not caring about the damage it could potentially cause to the man. Unfortunately for her, the silver haired man dodged the incoming projectile and caused the stapler to be imbedded into the wall.

Having had enough of everything, Naruto spoke up. "Can we get this reunion between an old married couple over with and get down to business." Naruto said in a bored fashion. Sure he was happy to see Tsunade despite their differences when they first met but he didn't want to do something as embarrassing as running over and hugging her.

"Naruto… you've grown a lot since I last saw you." Tsunade commented as she couldn't believe just how much of a change he had gone through. His blonde hair was parted down the middle, fell on either side of his neck and went down to where his abs started. The change in hair style was the single largest change in Naruto's appearance.

Since he wasn't going on a mission anytime soon, Naruto was not dressed in his mission garb. This meant he was wearing a red kimono top which was short sleeved and had a fair bit of his chest showing. The choice in clothing allowed Naruto's tattoo which started at his wrist and finished at his pectoral.

To complete the look, Naruto was wearing a pair of loose black cotton pair of pants which had elastic around the ankles of each leg so that he didn't need to use gauze tape.

"It's nice to see you again Tsunade-sama." Despite it being a bland and impersonal statement, Tsunade could see just from the look in Naruto's eyes, he meant it.

"You too Naruto-kun." The blonde haired woman said as she solely addressed Naruto. "Now, Jiraiya tells me that you two are of chunin rank, gone on missions of A-class and have each been a leader on a mission." The Hokage stated before she went over to her desk and pulled out two scrolls.

"Here, inside these are the terms and conditions to officially joining the Konoha Military force.

There are many requirements but I will just list off the major ones. No tattoos on your face or hands. You are also not permitted to have anything offensive apart of your tattoos. If you are found to have any of these, then we will cut your skin so far down that we take the ink out of your skin and then grow it back; all of this is done without any form of anaesthetic. There is a professional image that we need to maintain; this also stands for but is not limited to piercings.

You will give us unrestricted service meaning that you will be sent on missions when you don't want to, you can't have anything like a court order or even worse be in jail at the time of a posting. There is a minimum period of service of at least four years. You will not be allowed to quit unless you sustain a medical injury which prevents you from doing the duty to your country. You will only be allowed to discharge from the corps once your MPS is complete and even then you have to give three months' notice before your final day.

You will have the same salary as every other ninja of your rank no matter the difficulty of missions you go on. The only way you can get an increase in pay is to rise in rank. Each year your pay goes up a fixed percentage based on the amount of years that you have served.

After having heard all of this, are you still willing to commit and give it your all on a constant basis when serving your village?" Tsunade lectured the two shinobi in front of her who were not a part of Konoha.

Karin had no problem whatsoever with signing with these commitments. She had nothing that she could fall back on and she wasn't willing to become a missing ninja when she had the chance to have a comfortable life with a good job. She wasn't going to turn this down. "Hai Hokage-sama, I would still like to join Konoha after having read this document and heard what you had to say."

"Very well then; come over here and sign your name onto the paper." Tsunade said to the girl who looked a lot like her grandmother in photos of when she was a teenager.

Suigetsu on the other hand was taking his time. He was having second thoughts, whilst he had every confidence that he could gain the swords living in Konoha, he wondered just how long it would take for that to happen. The only one that he knew that he was going to have a chance of getting was Samehada. With Kisame being a part of a group of shinobi that was actively hunting Naruto, he knew that the chance would come to him rather than the opposite.

Concerning the Hiramekarei, he had absolutely no leads on it a part from the fact that his brother had it before he died. For all he knew, the sword was lost or in the hands of the Mist ninja who killed him. There could have been another answer to the question all together.

It was a similar situation with the rest of the swords which his brother had in his possession before he died. The only difference was that he was sure that he would have heard in the past about at least one of them being the hands of a ninja. That meant that they were still in a scroll although he had no idea where said scroll was.

The question was whether or not his time would be better served searching for the weapons which were his dream, or would he get the swords whilst still living in Konoha in a reasonable timeframe.

Looking over at his makeshift family… he knew the answer to his question.

"Yeah… how bad could it be?" Suigetsu said out loud and walked over to the table and signed the contract in blood.

Once the process was done, Tsunade sealed the documents in the respective scroll before getting another one out of her draw. Opening it up revealed two green flak jackets; they both had the Uzumaki clan spiral on the back. "Here you go; you are now officially recognized as Chunin ninja of Konoha.

Tomorrow you will have to report here so that you can get your ninja identification sorted out. That's tomorrow's job though as there are more important things for today. All three of you will be going to your new jobs and learning of your surroundings." Tsunade said addressing the newest shinobi amongst her ranks as well as Naruto.

"You know… I always thought that Konoha was a bunch of pussies but I guess it seems alright." Suigetsu bluntly stated out of the blue.

It was clear to everyone that Suigetsu was doing this as a bait to get a reaction. Knowing that she did not have the bloodline under her command just yet, she decided to play nice for now….

"Just because the rainforest looks all nice and pretty, it doesn't mean that the forest isn't home to some very vicious animals which have a tendency to bite."

That was music to the ears of the Hozuki. "Sweet! Does that mean I can kill enemies and not leave them alive like the stereotype Konoha has going for them.

"As long as no words gets out that Konoha has a member of the Hozuki clan in their ranks, you're free to do whatever you want so long as it falls within the parameters of a mission then I don't care what happens."

"Wait a minute… what's this about not telling anyone the fact that I have a bloodline!" Suigetsu said in a heated tone of voice. For all he had heard of Konoha preaching their love for bloodlines, he here was being forced to hide his identity!

Knowing that this could get troublesome quickly, Tsunade quickly tried to defuse the situation. "At the moment Konoha is still recovering from the invasion by Suna and Oto. We simply do not have the manpower to start an international incident by taking a bloodline from another village even if they are in the process of purging them."

"It's not as if Kiri is in any position to go to war with Konoha. They are even worse than Konoha so I don't see how that has got anything to do with it." After so long being oppressed for having a bloodline, Suigetsu wanted the good life that Konoha had to offer bloodline users.

Without getting angry, Tsunade replied. "It's not Kirigakure that's the problem, It's Iwa and Kumo. They would see us taking a prominent bloodline and adding it to our ranks as a massive threat to their village's respective strength. At the moment we are strong enough to be enough of a deterrent for either one to go to war simply because if they did, they would leave themselves open for the other village to attack.

If they found out that we have a Hozuki, they could form a temporary alliance to come and attack our village with us having not enough man power to stop them.

Once we get strong enough, which at an ideal rate would be in two years' time, you can freely prance around displaying your bloodline. Plus, Jiraiya told me about you… you don't need a bloodline to get a girlfriend or casual sex."

Suigetsu was satisfied with the answer. He didn't like it but he could see Konoha's reasoning behind it and accepted it.

"ANBU, go and get Tenzou and Iruka Umino from the academy and bring them to my office immediately." Tsunade said changing the topic of conversation to which there was a flash of movement.

After five minutes of getting to know her newest shinobi, the two ninja that she had called for arrived in her office.

"Hi there Iruka-sensei." Naruto said to which the man quickly replied before turning his attention to the Hokage.

"Hokage-sama, is there something that I have done to warrant me coming here?" Iruka said with slight panic lacing his voice.

"No, I haven't brought you here for that. Is there something I should be made aware of Iruka?" Tsunade said in a questioning tone although there was a hidden threat in the way she spoke.

"No Hokage-sama!" The man quickly replied.

"Good. Today you are going to be getting a teacher's aide for the rest of the year where she will take her own class. Her name is Karin and she is standing behind you."

Seeing the opportunity, Karin introduced herself. "Hi there Iruka-sensei, I hope to learn a lot under your guidance." The red haired girl said before she gave a polite bow.

"It's nice to meet you too Karin-san. Hokage-sama, if that is all, do you want me to take Karin to the academy and show her the facility?" the man questioned to his boss.

"Yes, that would be good." Tsunade replied.

Seeing the dismissal, Karin gave the hand of Naruto a squeeze before walking out of the room following her new boss. "With that done, let's get onto you two." The Hokage said as she directed her attention to Naruto and Suigetsu.

"First things first, Naruto, your pay structure will be changing. No longer will your pay be based on the mission you go on. Now that you are a self-reliant ninja not under the tutelage of a Jonin-sensei, you will have a standardized wage of fifty five thousand dollars."

Naruto was more than happy with that. It was very rare for genin to get missions above C-rank which didn't pay much when factoring hours worked divided by four for the team.

"Since you are joining the ANBU which has a shorter life expectancy, you will get an increase of thirty thousand dollars per annum. You will be expected to work longer hours though with less rostered time off."

After hearing that Naruto's wage was five thousand dollars a year more than his own, Suigetsu was a little miffed but couldn't complain.

"With that out of the way, I would you like to introduce both of you to ANBU captain Tenzou. He will be your immediate superior and your team leader. Any issues that you have you will direct them through the channels with the first step being him. Tenzou, take off your mask."

Tenzou did just that.

This was the first time that Naruto was seeing the man's face. Last time he saw him was in the hospital ward after killing Sasuke and he didn't take his mask off.

Suigetsu looked at him and didn't see anything special about the man. He had a weird forehead protector but a part from that, he had no idea what was good about him.

In hindsight, this was the proper thing for a shinobi to do. The only thing that standing out from the crowd did was making more enemies for yourself.

"Tenzou take these two and get them started on the initiation process for the black ops." Tsunade commanded to one of her best ninjas in all of the force.

"Right away Hokage-sama." Tenzou said before walking over to Naruto and Suigetsu and placed his hands on their shoulders and used a seal less shunshin. With the three of them gone, it was just Jiraiya and Tsunade in the room.

"So what was with that before?" Tsunade questioned to her former teammate in reference to the insult.

It didn't need to be voiced for Jiraiya to know what she was on about. "What that was nowhere near as bad as some of the things that have come out of your mouth princess."

_That's not what I meant idiot and you know it! Why now, I mean I've given you heaps of reasons in the past, but nothing now…_

"I guess that after spending so much time watching Naruto and Karin happily together, I finally came to a realization. It's something that I really should have done when I was a teenager."

Tsunade was curious but also slightly apprehensive. "What was it, what was the realization?"

"Men and women can't be "just friends.""

Tsunade couldn't help but laugh hysterically when she heard this. "That's preposterous you and I are friends."

It was then that Jiraiya stared intensely into her eyes. "But aren't we more than just friends?"

Tsunade was unable to hold the intensity of the gaze that her long time best friend was giving her. The blonde haired woman averted her gaze and stared at the wall to the right. Eventually she gathered up the courage to return the gaze. "No, there's nothing more to us than just friends. What happened before were just mistakes."

Let it not be said that when backed into a corner, people lash out.

"Fine then; I'm giving you an ultimatum because being "Just friends" is simply not an option. I've been through so much pain that we can't be just friends. It's either going to be us in a relationship, or us not being friends at all. I've simply had enough."

Shocked beyond belief at what she had just heard, Tsunade thought that this was some convoluted attempt by him to get into her pants. She wasn't going to fall for it. "You're just being an arrogant and selfish arsehole, I would never get in a relationship with you." Tsunade screamed with anger lacing her words and in the process accidentally spat a little bit.

"Me, Selfish? This is the first time that I have ever put myself first. Every time it has been you, you, you; I should have done this a long time ago." Jiraiya shouted back just as forcefully as Tsunade did to him. It put the woman through a loop, this was the first time he had been truly angry with her as far as she knew.

There was a hardening in the eyes of Jiraiya. "Very well then Hokage-sama, you will have my report in three months' time." The silver haired man said in an even tone of voice although she could tell that he was angry on the inside. Before he gave Tsunade a chance to respond, he shunshined out of the room.

_What have I done? _Tsunade thought to herself as she stared at the space where Jiraiya once stood for a good fifteen minutes.

**With Iruka**

"So your name was Karin wasn't it?" Iruka questioned as the two were walking back to the academy from the Hokage's office. Even though she had already told him earlier, the man with a scar across his nose.

"Yes."

"So what made you decide that you wanted to become a teacher?" Iruka questioned. He wanted to get to know this girl if he was going to be spending time with her.

Unconcerned with the question, Karin responded. "My boyfriend had a bit of a troubled past and it made me want to do something where I can be helping kids." He could see the way her face changed in emotion when she spoke.

It was a refreshing surprise for Iruka as it was quite rare to see someone so young so passionate about working with kids. Pretty much every shinobi who decided to become a teacher was only doing it for the pay check and the fact that you don't go on as many missions.

"That's really good to here. Too many people go into teaching for the wrong reasons. So your boyfriend… would I be right in guessing in guessing that your boyfriend is Naruto?" Iruka questioned.

It was at this point that Karin got defensive. She knew from Naruto that he had had a troubled past. She had no idea whether or not this man hated her boyfriend. Karin hoped that he didn't hate Naruto because she had to work with him for the next six months.

Seeing the hesitance, Iruka decided to give a bit of a back story on his and Naruto's relationship. "I taught Naruto when he was a genin although I have to say that he never applied the same commitment in my classes as he did once he was out of the academy and into the real world."

_That's your fault as a teacher for not getting the keeping the student's interest. _That was what she thought although she didn't say it. She didn't want to cause any friction that would cause her internship to falter.

"The kid that I taught was completely different to the person I saw at the chunin exams. Even though you're not supposed to, he was my favourite student."

With her curiosity piqued, Karin replied to the man's statement. "What made Naruto-kun your favourite student?"

"Me and him… we came from similar backgrounds although mine wasn't as bad as his. We were the type of kids who didn't put much effort into our school work as we were more concerned with getting attention whether or not it be good or bad.

Now though, I'm not sure whether or not I can relate to Naruto anymore. He has changed so much it's scary. The Naruto I knew would never have killed his best friend."

She couldn't help it, even though she had heard it from Naruto in a different light, it was still hard to hear that her boyfriend would kill her best friend. Just the thought of having to do that to Suigetsu or even worse Naruto brought chills down her spine.

"Sure but he told me that the Sasuke kid was a traitor who was in the process of abandoning his village." Karin said coming to the defence of her Naruto.

It was at this point that Iruka sighed. "Sasuke… he had a lot of psychological issues due to his upbringing. What he went through was probably even worse than what Naruto had to deal with."

"Even still, that's no excuse to abandon your village." Karin replied even though she knew that it sounded very hypocritical due to the fact that she left Kusagakure. It wasn't as if she was going to tell him that though.

"Let's just agree to disagree. We have to maintain a professional manner and if we get into an argument, it's only going to get worse." Iruka said. He didn't want to anger the Hokage especially since there was no mentioning of any new interns. That meant that Karin had connections with enough sway to drop her into a teaching position without the academy having any foreknowledge.

**With Tenzou**

The second after the ANBU captain shunshined the three into an undisclosed location, Suigetsu put on the chunin flak jacket just to get a feel for it. "Hey, this feels pretty good. It's much better than the one that Kiri used to give out." Suigetsu said as he fiddled with the edges of his new piece of clothing.

"Yes, that's all well and good but we have to get you indoctrinated into the ANBU way. There is a difference between being a shinobi and being an ANBU operative. You're going to be studying the classified protocol that is expected of a member of the ops. Then you will go on your first mission in which you will have blank mask. Once you complete that, you will become fully fledged operatives."

Surprisingly enough Suigetsu didn't complain which Naruto half expected him to. Naruto really should have given his friend the credit for being able to turn mission mode off and on.

"Before that can happen though, we have to get you two in uniform. Every second that you are on duty, you will wear your uniform. We have very high standards that will be met." Tenzou said in a commanding tone to which Naruto and Suigetsu nodded.

"Follow me as we will be going to the outfitting room where you will have your body fat percentage and overall body dimensions. This is so that you will have the best fitting clothes allowing you to complete each mission that you go on to the best of your abilities without any hindrances."

Naruto and Suigetsu nodded at this. They followed the man in front of them down the hall before he stopped at the second door on the left. Tenzou gave a quick knock on the door before entering.

"These two here are the newest recruits and they need their uniforms made."

"Yes Captain-sama, right away sir." The woman behind the counter quickly said as she brought out a measuring tape and a set of callipers.

Turning around to the two recruits, the brown haired man gave them yet another order. "Stay here whilst I go to get your masks." Tenzou said to which both Naruto and Suigetsu gave an affirmative "yes sir" in response.

Once the commanding officer was gone, the woman started up a conversation with the two recruits. "Okay I will start with the blonde first. Can you please take off your clothes down to your underwear so I can get perfectly accurate measurements please." Even though it was asked the format of a question, it was a statement; Naruto didn't have any choice but to obey the woman.

Nodding, Naruto took off his clothes and felt awkward at the fact that there was a woman with stapler looking things grabbing at his skin. "If you don't mind me asking, you two look awfully young; how old are you?"

"We are both fourteen, why?" Naruto said as he wished to the get this process over and done with so that he could put his clothes back on. He could hear the snickers going on in the background from Suigetsu.

"Oh, it's just that apart from a shinobi last week, you two are the youngest people I have seen come through these doors since Itachi Uchiha. Normally they get shinobi at a minimum age of 17. If you two are joining, you must be very skilled shinobi."

Naruto's eyes widened slightly. To be compared to Itachi Uchiha was a massive complement even if he was a psychopathic serial Killer. The man was a ridiculously talented shinobi. Suigetsu who was spending his first day in Konoha didn't realise the gravity of such a comparison. Seeing his best friend's expression though, he knew it was nothing to sneeze at so he played the part.

By the time all the measuring was done, Tenzou had returned with two plain white porcelain masks. "You two will get to either paint these yourselves or have one of the commissioned officers to do it for you once you graduate. Until that day, you will wear a plain white one to signify you are not fully initiated.

All standard ANBU masks have special seals put on them which allows them to function as gas masks although not as good as purpose built ones and they also allow you to see out of them with no change to your vision. To apply a mask, you place it on your face and then channel chakra onto the seal and it will stick until you stop the flow." Tenzou said as he handed over the masks to Naruto and Suigetsu.

"Put them on and see for yourself. As I said before, you will wear your uniform at all times, this includes your mask. The only time you will be able to take it off will be to either eat or drink." Doing just as they were told, they put the masks on and were surprised at the vision they had when wearing them. It was as if they weren't wearing a mask at all. It was even so light that they couldn't feel it on their face.

"Since you do not have any uniforms currently available to wear, you will wear these grey cloaks. You will not let anyone see what you wear underneath this cloak." Tenzou ordered to which both Naruto and Suigetsu nodded.

"The like the plain white masks, the grey cloaks represent recruits and graduates. If you pass the testing procedure to become an operative, you will receive a black cloak. If you ever manage to get to my rank, you will receive a white cloak which signifies to other people that you are a captain."

Naruto and Suigetsu both nodded once again and took the cloaks from the outfitting lady and put them on. The two recruits were surprised that the lady managed to cut the cloaks to size in such a short amount of time.

"Thankyou civilian-san, we must be going now but I will inform these two to come pick out their uniforms tomorrow morning at 8am." Tenzou said and after he got a quick bow from the woman, he walked away with Naruto and Suigetsu trailing behind slightly. "You might be surprised why we have some civilians doing jobs in restricted areas of Konoha." Tenzou said and the two boys nodded.

"Unlike the regular corps, the ANBU is the elite group. We don't settle for a certain level of competency. The regular forces will offer you a job if you have been injured and can't go out into the field. During this time you will be given time to learn your new role so that you can do your job.

We will not.

Here at the ANBU we demand perfection not only from the soldiers but everyone that goes into making the ANBU department tick over. If you are a civilian who is better in a certain profession compared to a shinobi, we will take the civilian. There is no room for error. Of course we do a stringent background check on each and every employee to make sure that there is nothing suspicious.

That is why you will see that most of the people who work for the ANBU department who aren't specialised shinobi will be civilians. Even though you might not think it, they are just as vital to making this unit work just as effectively as the shinobi in the corps. You will treat them with the same amount of respect that you give me. In turn they will give you as much respect as they give me.

It's something that Sandaime-sama and Danzo-sama forced onto the corps and now the ANBU division is the strongest that it has ever been." Tenzou lectured onto the new recruits.

All they could do was nod. It was a wealth of information that they had to digest. The worst part was that they knew that this was only just the beginning.

"Now that that is out of the way, let's go and meet your other squad member." The man in the white cloak ordered. He didn't even bother for a response as he headed around a corner, down a hallway, opened up a door on his right and then finally went down three flights of stairs.

As they were moving, Naruto couldn't help but wonder who the final partner of the team was going to be. He hoped that it was someone who didn't hold the prejudice of the Kyubi which so many people in Konoha did. It would totally suck if he had to work with someone like that.

"We are in the deep underground training facilities of the Konoha ANBU. If you continue on this path, it will lead you two the jutsu classified jutsu libraries that no shinobi other than ANBU and the Hokage are allowed to access." Tenzou said and immediately turned right. Once they got into one of the many training rooms, the trio of shinobi found a loan recruit in his uniform waiting to the side.

"We will be having a spar in a two on two fight to learn how well you can adapt into situations that you are unfamiliar with. There will be no communication in this fight and you will not make any attacks that could potentially cause a permanent injury. You two split up. One of you stand over there with the other recruit whilst myself and the other recruit will be on a team."

Tenzou commanded to which both Suigetsu and Naruto looked at one another. One thing that they quickly realised was that you couldn't see through a mask that an ANBU was wearing. It must have been something to do with the seals.

"You can pass the ANBU test solely based on your own skills but like the regular corps, you will have a much better chance of progressing if you have excellent teamwork. Now let's get this spar underway." The captain said and four shinobi started running.

**With Karin**

Having just had a tour of the Konoha academy, she was impressed. In comparison to the facilities that Kusagakure had on offer, Konoha was a massive improvement.

After having her tour of the new workplace which she would start tomorrow, Karin had to get moving. She needed to find a place for herself, Naruto and Suigetsu to stay. Their sensei Jiraiya had explicitly stated that it was up to them to find somewhere to stay. It was all a part of growing up and learning to fend for themselves. They couldn't rely on having a parent figure there for the rest of their lives so why not start now?

After getting a location for a real estate agent, Karin went there to see what they had on offer. The second that she went into the place, a woman came out from behind the desk.

"Hi there, how may I help you?" The woman questioned and she didn't even bat an eye at the fact that the girl in front of her was so young. Living in a shinobi village for your whole entire life made you realise that ninjas could be as young as 10 on rare occasions, graduate and then come in for an apartment.

"I would like to see what apartments you have available that I could move into today please." Karin said to the woman who merely nodded.

"Okay then, we have a few properties on the market that are furnished. What are the requirements in terms of bedrooms, bathroom and appliances?"

"We will need two bedrooms each with their own ensuite. We also would like it to be in the centre of Konoha."

That through the real estate agent for a loop. Despite being a shinobi, what she was asking for was something that civilians go for. "We have one that fits the requirements although I am not sure whether or not you will be able to afford it." There was no condescension; she simply didn't think a teenager was capable of making enough money to live in a penthouse apartment.

This woman didn't know that Karin was a "self-made" multi-millionaire. "I assure you I can afford whatever the cost is."

Deciding that she might as well humour the girl since she had had a slow day today, the real estate agent offered to show the apartment to the girl.

30 minutes later, there standing in the living room of a penthouse apartment. Karin couldn't believe her eyes, it looked amazing, and it was perfect for the three of them. "The price for this apartment is 250,000 per annum in rent. It is only available at a minimum stay of six months however you can pay either fortnightly, monthly or in one lump sum."

"Okay, I'll take it." Karin said with a smile on her face as she took in the apartment with her eyes yet again.

Not believing for a second that a fourteen year old had the funds to pay for this apartment, the real estate agent questioned how she would be paying for it.

"Yes, I will pay for the entire six months up front." The red haired girl stated and pulled out a check book. Surprised at the fact that the girl had a check book let alone enough money to do such a thing, she watched in awe as the girl wrote out the check.

Seeing that she needed to do her own part of the deal, the real estate agent pulled out the contract for the apartment. Once Karin had signed it, the woman spoke up. "Now before I sign this apartment lease off to you, we will need to go down to the bank. Sorry, it's not personal but I find it hard to believe that a teenager and a young one at that have enough money to make a check like this valid."

Karin merely nodded. She knew that it was very rare for someone of her age bracket to have so much money. Now that she realised the apartment that she was going to be living in, she had no qualms of taking the money from the gold mine.

With everything done and the keys Karin was happy that the three shinobi who had just arrived in Konoha now had a place to stay for the night and beyond.

**In the ANBU training rooms**

"Okay that spar was very good; I am impressed with the performances given today by all of you. Each of you has passed this test." Tenzou said letting the information sink in to the three potential graduates.

"Now take off your masks and introduce yourself to one another. You three are done for the day now Neji, take these two and show them the public entrance for the ANBU. This will be the entrance you enter when people see you enter the building. There are other hidden entrances but you will only find out about them if you graduate." Tenzou commanded to which the other potential graduate nodded.

Naruto meanwhile was shocked. He knew that the fighter that joined Suigetsu was a Hyuga but he never would have guessed that it was Neji. The transformation in him was immense and he never would have guessed that Neji could improve so much as a shinobi in such a short space of time. It was ironic because Naruto conveniently left out the fact that he himself had improved dramatically over the past six months.

"Naruto, is that you!?" Neji exclaimed in surprise. The only way that he could discern that it was Naruto was because of the whisker marks on his face. They were a very weird and unique set of birthmarks.

"Yes Neji, it's good to see you again." Naruto said politely whilst holding his hand out.

Quickly giving it a shake, Neji turned to Suigetsu who had taken his mask off by this time. "Hi, I'm sorry I don't know who you are but my name is Neji Hyuga."

"Hi, my name's Suigetsu." Suigetsu said shaking the boy's hand.

"Would you want to go out and get some dinner with us, we only just got back in Konoha today so it would be nice to see some familiar faces." Naruto asked to which Neji nodded.

He had kind of burned the bridges of Team Gai when he joined the ANBU so it would be nice to make some new friends. The plus side was that he was every bit confident that Naruto could graduate to the ANBU. After all, Naruto had beaten himself in the chunin exams and he was absolutely confident that he could graduate.

As he had been here for a week longer than Naruto and Suigetsu, Neji showed the duo were the male change rooms were. Once the trio of hopeful ANBU graduates had changed back into their civilian clothing, they went through one of the secret exits that Neji showed them.

Moving fast so that no one saw them, they made sure that no one saw them move. "Before we go to dinner, I just need to find my girlfriend." Naruto said to Neji who merely raised an eyebrow at that statement. There were a lot of things that were a mystery when it concerned Naruto Uzumaki.

Using the jutsu which Karin was perfect at, Naruto placed his hands in a seal and searched for Karin's chakra signature. Although he was didn't even come close to Karin's level with the jutsu, Naruto had such familiarity with the signatures that he spent six months with that he could find them within a one km radius from where he stood.

2 minutes later and Karin had been introduced to Neji who she admitted to herself looked quite cute, even if a bit spooky with his eyes. On the way to a restaurant, they ran into Ino.

"Wow Neji! I can't believe that you didn't tell me that you had such cute friends."

Before Neji could respond, Karin inched closer to Naruto and grabbed his hand. Ino saw this but was quickly put on the backburner by the actions of the white haired boy.

"I'm not cute missy! I'm hot and you better not forget that!" Suigetsu said as he oozed confidence. In combination with what he said, Suigetsu stepped forward two steps and started doing the peck dance.

"Oh I'm sorry Hot; I'll make sure to get that right next time your highness." The blonde bombshell said in a heavily patronizing tone of voice. This only served to anger Suigetsu.

Neji got the conversation back on track. "This here is Naruto, Suigetsu and Karin."

Shocked at the fact that Neji had mentioned the name of one of her graduating class, Ino turned her attention away from Suigetsu and on the blonde haired boy whose hair was even longer than her own.

"Wow Naruto! Is that really you? I can't believe it, you've changed so much since we last saw one another!" Ino said as she looked at the face of Naruto and saw his whisker marks. Only Naruto had such a unique set of birthmarks.

"Yes, I guess I have changed in the six months that I was on a mission. Say, how would you like to join us for dinner."

Seeing the chance to learn about the guy that helped her epiphany onto becoming a better shinobi and thus a better person, Ino jumped at the chance. Shikamaru and Choji were really boring and Sakura had gone off the rails so when she got the chance to make some new friends she was down for it. She could get a new best girlfriend in the red head since Sakura had vacated that position a long time ago.

Plus… that purple eyed boy was quite hot…

"Well at least not all of you tree huggers have the personality of a rock. I mean Neji really badly needs to get laid and learn to loosen up once in a while." Suigetsu boldly stated to which the brown haired boy gaped as much as a Hyuga could. Ino however, simply giggled.

**Author's Note: At the moment I only have one mission idea in my head for ANBU missions with the team but other plans I have for this story have to happen first for that specific mission to take place. if you have any suggestions for missions that would involve the team, I would be happy to discuss them with you.**


	35. To fly so he never left land

"Hey honey you're home!" Karin called out as she heard the noise of the door opening. It also helped that she had gotten the hang of using her amazing sensory skills without the use of hand signs.

Immediately, Naruto moved as fast as he could and wrapped his arms around Karin from behind and lifted her off the ground. "Ahhhh!" Karin screamed out in surprise.

"Put me down Naruto! I need to start cooking dinner soon." Karin chastised to her boyfriend even if she did like the enthusiasm he was showing.

"Nope, we can go and get dinner later. Suigetsu has managed to rope in Neji to go with him to and try and pick up girls. We have the whole night to ourselves!" The blonde haired boy said with a massive grin on his face.

It didn't take long at all for Karin to mirror the same look as her boyfriend. Still holding Karin in her arms, Naruto chucked her in the air, spun her around and caught her with his arms firmly planted on her arse which was covered by the black skirt.

Karin was turned on by the sign of confidence and power. Wrapping her legs around his waist, the red haired girl brought her hands up to Naruto's chin and kissed him passionately.

Gripping the glutes of his girlfriend, Naruto elicited a moan from Karin as she nibbled on his lower lip. Moving back from the table which Karin was previously marking homework on, Naruto made his way out of the study and turned to go up the stairs of their two story apartment.

As this was happening, Karin started peeling off the kimono top that Naruto was wearing off of his shoulders. "Ugh that's it Karin." He encouraged as she started kissing his jawline and neck.

Chucking Karin in the air for a second, Naruto quickly opened the door with his free hand before planting it back where it once was. Pushing the door open with Karin who was busily kissing his traps which were no longer covered by his kimono top, Naruto walked into his and Karin's bedroom.

The second that he placed her on the bed and he didn't have to hold her, his hands went moving straight to Karin's vivacious red hair and locked her lips in a passionate kiss. Naruto had his fingers out wide and placed each hand on the base of Karin's neck. When he moved them up the skull of his girlfriend whilst letting it fall through the webbing of his fingers, Karin moaned as it almost caused sensory overload.

The blonde haired boy's hands moved from the back of Karin's head as he placed them on the jawline and rubbed his thumbs softly on Karin's cheeks. Biting on her lip, Naruto gestured to his girlfriend that he wanted her to open her mouth.

Obliging him, Karin did just that and let his tongue enter her mouth. She was not idle though. If there was one thing from the magazines that she had read, it was that men hated sex when they had to do all the work. Karin's hands which were previously on Naruto's neck moved to his lat muscles on his back and started running her hands over them through his clothes.

Since he hadn't had it in a long time, Naruto wanted to enjoy the moment as much as possible. To do this, he placed his hands on the hips of his girlfriend and started massaging.

Karin brought her hands to the obi which held the kimono top and untied it allowing to simply hand off Naruto. This gave the red haired girl the chance to see her boyfriend's front.

There was a substantial amount of muscle to his chest compared to people his age. The only person that he knew or had even seen his own age who had a bigger one was Suigetsu.

Whilst he had a better than average chest, the piece du resistance when it came to his physique was his abs. Due to the fact that that the Kyubi burned every single piece of fat on his body that wasn't immediately used to build muscle, it meant that Naruto's upper and lower abs were constantly on show.

The second that her hands touched his pectorals, Naruto's chest muscles instinctively flexed themselves under her touch. Karin giggled into the mouth of Naruto when she felt this. She even started playing with his nipples when she massaged his chest.

Not liking that he was the one who was losing out here, Naruto decided that he had to even the score. Moving his hands which one of them had strayed from Karin's skirt and to her hamstring muscle, Naruto firmly placed both of his hands on Karin's dress shirt covered chest.

Karin moaned into the kiss as this happened. Breaking the kiss, Naruto took control of the situation quickly planting multiple kisses along the neckline right to the clavicle. The second that he got there, he placed his mouth over the skin and latched on, sucking hard enough to cause small blood vessels to burst.

It felt so good at the time that Karin didn't mind one bit when he did it to the same spot on her other clavicle bone. When she realised that she had two massive hickeys where her shoulder connected to her neck, she was going to be anything but happy.

Naruto didn't mind though, he liked it when she got angry; it was cute.

Instead of kissing the skin with force as he did on her neck, Naruto softly started kissing the milky white skin of Karin's chest.

"That feels so good Naruto-kun!" Karin mewled as she shuddered under the sensations Naruto was causing to her body. As the blonde haired boy lightly nibbled, kissed and licked the skin which was exposed by her collard dress shirt, Naruto's hands found their way to Karin's breasts.

The second that hands connected with the soft tissue, Karin arched her back and moaned loudly. The Uzumaki playfully squeezed the breasts that were in his hands before running the part where his fingerprint resided on his thumbs over where Karin's nipples were. Despite the fact that there were two layers of clothing between the skin, Naruto could still feel the buds showing that she was erect due to the pleasure she was under.

If ever Naruto needed a confidence booster, there was one right there.

"Awww" The red haired girl childishly complained when Naruto's soft hands were removed from her boobs. That was quickly quietened down when she felt a slight pull on her and that the top two buttons of her shirt had been undone. Once that happened, both of Naruto's hands went back to Karin's breasts and squished them together.

Knowing what was going to happen, the school teacher's face went just as red as her face when she felt Naruto smother his face into her tits. Despite the fact that it wasn't as pleasurable for a woman as it was for a man, the feeling of Naruto's chakra when she sensed essentially made anything he did a pleasurable act for her. "Yes, that's it Naruto-kun, don't be afraid to play rough!"

Once all the buttons were undone of her light blue collared shirt, Naruto yanked it out of Karin's tight skirt. She was still wearing it although now Naruto could see her blue bra which held her borderline b/c cup breasts which heaved with each deep breath.

Placing his hands on the lower spine of his girlfriend, Naruto lent down and for the faintest of seconds, she felt his arousal pressed into her clothed core. Leaning down, Naruto went back to kissing the red head before he brought her up to a seated position in his lap.

Now Karin felt Naruto's arousal clearer and even ground into. Hissing, Naruto looked into Karin's eyes who merely giggled with the best attempt of an innocent expression on her face. Naruto merely responded with a smirk that Karin knew all too well. It was the one she both loved and hated at the same time. She knew that he had concocted something in his head and she would be on the receiving end of it. It filled her with both fear and excitement at the same time.

After the one second that it took Naruto to get Karin out of her shirt, he placed his hands on her sides, right on top of her bra. "Don't you dare Naruto-kun!" Karin futilely cried out although there was laughter mixed in with it.

Ignoring the request of his girlfriend, Naruto used wind chakra to slice up the boob cage to the point where the red haired girl would never be able to wear it again.

"Gee thanks to you I'm going to have to go shopping soon." Karin tried to say in the same tone when she reprimanded her students who did something wrong. Key word there was tried as she was still under heavy arousal and it just didn't work at all.

"Good, I'll come with you." Naruto said with a smirk on his face. In all fairness, it was the only type of shopping that he did like to do with his girlfriend.

Ever since she had become best friends with the Hokage's apprentice, Karin had come out of her shell and gained loads of confidence. The way how she did this was by going out and making friends of her own without having to be around either Suigetsu or Naruto.

Merely hanging around the vivacious personality of the bubbly blonde, Karin had grown in confidence much like Sakura Haruno had done in years gone by.

This confidence in herself allowed Karin to not flinch and instead stare back intensely at her boyfriend with her chest fully exposed. "Maybe you can pick out something special for me to wear for you Naruto-kun." The fiery red head said in a sultry tone of voice.

Grinding her skirt covered toosh into Naruto's half erection. The second the friction occurred, it turned into a full erection which resulted in an unintentional hiss.

"Oh, so the anaconda has awoken, I bet he wants to come out and play." Karin sultrily purred as she lent in to the neck of Naruto and tugged on his ear. She knew that riling Naruto up was only going to serve to make the night all that more enjoyable for both herself and her other half.

**With Jiraiya**

Just like the last time he had seen the Hokage, she was sleeping on the job. Instead of playfully waking up the blonde, he chose for something else. Sending a pulse of chakra into someone like you would for breaking a genjutsu, Jiraiya did this to wake up the Hokage.

Immediately when she felt the foreign chakra enter her body, Tsunade's heightened senses kicked in and she immediately woke up. Looking around to see if there was a threat, she saw Jiraiya standing there. "Jiraiya!" Tsunade said with excitement. It had been a long time since they had seen one another, six months in fact. They hadn't parted on the best of terms but she hoped that it was just some ploy that he was trying to get in her pants before going back to normal.

Seeing the excitement in the face of Tsunade when she recognized who it was that was in her office, Jiraiya couldn't help but get his hopes up. Even though he knew not to for potential disappointment, he couldn't help it.

"Have you come to a decision?" Jiraiya questioned to the blonde haired lady. Immediately there was recognition on her face as she remembered just what her teammate was referring to.

"I'm not going to go out with you Jiraiya." Tsunade said in the usual way that she addressed her friend of over 40 years.

"I see, very well then Hokage sama, here is your mission report." Jiraiya said in a bland tone of voice. If she admitted it to herself, it looked as if Jiraiya acted like one of the ROOT soldiers of years gone past.

It was scary, to see someone like Jiraiya who was so full of life so emotionless… it worried her and she didn't like it one bit.

Before she got the chance to say something, Jiraiya had already used a shunshin and vanished from the room.

Knowing that sorting out whatever was going on between herself and Jiraiya was more important than the work that she wasn't going to do until tomorrow morning anyway, the Godaime Hokage got out of her desk chair and headed for the one spot where she knew Jiraiya would be; the hot springs.

When she got there and used her rather limited sensory abilities, she couldn't find Jiraiya anywhere nearby. Of course Jiraiya was a spy master for a number of reasons and stealth was one of them but he never used those skills when inside Konoha.

She knew that if he really wanted to, he could get out of any trouble that his peeping got him into. It was this that made Tsunade assume that he really only did it for fun. After all… there was only so much "research and inspiration" one could get from the same old hot spring. For everything else, he would have to go to other locations.

Changing her henge into someone unrelated to her actual looks, Tsunade left the hot springs. Two minutes and a crosstown trip later, Tsunade found herself inside a strip club which also doubled as a brothel. When she was in the building, she saw the faces of shinobi and even a kunoichi that she had to deal with on occasion inside the room.

Disgusted for even entering the place, the green haired woman quickly used the same sensory jutsu to search for Jiraiya. Unfortunately for the disguised Hokage, there was no sign of Jiraiya yet again.

Frustrated at the fact that Jiraiya wasn't at the two places she expected him to be at, Tsunade was at a loss. _Where could he be! Well I guess it's around dinner time so he could be getting some food. _Tsunade thought to herself as she continued to wear the henge so that no one would know who she was, she headed down to the strip which had all of Konoha's popular restaurants.

Twenty minutes later and the disguised Hokage was absolutely fuming with herself. She had searched every restaurant for any sign of Jiraiya but to no avail, there was not even a hint of a trail. The last five minutes were even worse though.

She tried to think of another possible place where her friend could be. Then Tsunade remembered that Jiraiya was a fairly decent cook. What came next was the bit of information that made Tsunade sit on a bench with a feeling of hollowness.

_What kind of friend am I when I don't even know where he lives!?_ Tsunade thought to herself. Of course she hadn't been inside Konoha for a decade and a half before taking the position of Hokage but that was no excuse. Jiraiya was really the only friend that she had.

Shizune was like a niece or even a daughter considering the age gap. Naruto also fell into this equation although he was more like a grandson. All of the other shinobi friends that she had had died. She only had one friend left and she didn't even know where said friend lived.

There was a realisation that Jiraiya was always the one who initiated whatever the two of them did together. He was the one who came to the Senju compound, he was the one who came to the Hokage's office… _he was the one who put in the effort whilst I put in none._

It was a realization that rooted Tsunade to the seat she was in. it was a massive coincidence that the heavens opened up and masked the first tears to come from her face since the death of her boyfriend Dan.

She felt absolutely pathetic.

**With Naruto and Karin**

"That. Was. Amazing." Karin panted as she rested her head on the chest of was five minutes ago that they stopped their carnal pleasures with Naruto and yet she was still out of breath. It just went to show how much energy the two had and how much they needed the relief.

"Yeah, I think it was our best yet." Naruto replied as he stroked the hair of Karin. They were both naked and basking in the glory of what had happened before the red haired girl spoke up.

"We're so going to need to change these sheets or Suigetsu is going to complain about the smell when he gets home with yet another random girl…" Karin said with humour before that trailed off.

"Cut him some slack. As much as we would deny it, he's a bit of a third wheel, I mean three people living in an apartment and with their being a couple amongst them, the single person is always going to be the odd man out. It's not really fair that we get to have sex and he doesn't." Naruto said standing up for his friend. He really didn't want a fight to break out between Naruto and Karin. He didn't know what he would do.

"I know… it's just waking up and finding out that there's some girl that I have never met sleeping in a room nearby is not something that I like."

"I guess it's a girl thing, I mean it doesn't bother me as much although it annoys me when he brings over civilians. I swear half of them aren't even over the legal age of 16 but I'm not going to rat out a friend."

"I know he is a great friend and all, but maybe it's time we start looking for an apartment for ourselves. I mean we will still get to see our friends but it will also give us some privacy." Karin said in a suggestive that didn't fool Naruto for even a second.

Whilst it did sound great and he definitely would love to have sex more often, he didn't want to abandon his friend. If he moved into an apartment where it was just Karin and himself, it would mean that Suigetsu would be living alone.

Seeing what was going on inside the mind of Naruto, Karin tried to offer a solution. "It's not something that we have to think about now, I mean I just turned 15 and you will be turning 15 in six months' time so we still have a lot of time before we make any serious commitments. It's not even that big of a deal." Karin said as she realised that Naruto didn't really want to move out just yet.

When Karin said that it wasn't a big deal, he knew that that wasn't true. For her to even bring it up, meant that it had been something that she had put thought into previously.

"Anyway, Naruto, since you have tomorrow off, do you think that you could come to the academy with me, I want to show my students an active shinobi who is in the field."

"I don't see how bad that could be so I'll do it. The things I do for you…" Naruto over dramatized.

"Yes, you do a lot for me… I think I should do something to repay you the favour." Karin said with a grin when her hand started trailing down the abs of Naruto.

"I am sure that you can think of a lot of things Karin-chan." Naruto replied with a grin on his face. Had he been older, the recovery time might have been an issue but since he was going through puberty, he was able to bounce back up ready for action.

**The morning after**

One thing that the duo noticed was that Suigetsu wasn't with them. Karin did a quick check and found him with staying at Neji's for the night. What irked her was the fact that there were two civilian chakra signatures close enough that they stayed the night.

Getting rid of that thought, Karin finished up getting changed into a simple summer dress. Walking down the stairs, she found Naruto cooking a simple breakfast that was full of every nutrient they needed for the day.

With everything done, Naruto and Karin headed off to the academy. For Naruto it would be the first time that he had entered the place since the fateful chunin exams.

Using one of the techniques that was a must, Naruto hid inside the classroom and it was to no surprise of him that no one knew he was there. There was a member of the Aburame clan was on edge but that was as far as it got. There was a Hyuga in the class but she never even thought to activate her bloodline limit.

Once all the roll call and administration had been done, Karin got down to speaking with her class. "Class, today I have a special treat for you." There were numerous conversations that were sparked just from this statement. Every student's curiosity was gained as they wondered it could possibly be.

"There is an active shinobi who has agreed to answer questions on what it means to be a shinobi and how difficult missions are. He has even agreed to run you through the same training session that he uses which is also the same one that I use."

"How bad could the training be, I mean the training we do here is pretty hard so it can't be that much of a difference."

Karin merely smiled at the naiveté in the Akimichi child. He had no idea what was coming to him.

"Yeah! I bet that this training you do is nothing that the great Konohamaru can't handle!" As soon as the brown haired boy said this, there were two votes of encouragement for the grandson of the former Hokage.

"So you all think that the training that I do isn't that tough huh? How about I introduce you to him then." Hearing this, Naruto revealed himself to a large uproar.

"What! I never saw him there."

"I swear he appeared outta nowhere."

Everyone one of the students showed their surprise at the way Naruto seemingly came from nowhere. Karin merely smirked at the reactions. "If you have a question for Naruto here, raise your hand up in the air and he will pick you out."

"Wait a minute! Naruto, as in Naruto Uzumaki the guy who summons snakes!" Konohamaru jumped out of his seat and pointed rudely at the blonde haired boy.

"You really have poor manners. A sensei is a position of authority and respect. You will show your teacher the proper respect she deserves." Naruto said with a hard edge to his tone. Had he not been in a relationship with said teacher, maybe he would have been a bit more lenient.

If there was one thing that he wouldn't tolerate, it was people doing anything negative to the people that cared about. Out of everyone, Naruto was protective of Karin the most.

The result of the harsh reply made Konohamaru shrunk back in his seat for a few seconds. Once he regained his confidence as well as the fact that he didn't want to look like a scaredy cat, Konohamaru raised his hand.

"Yes." Naruto said giving the kid permission to speak.

"So are you the Naruto Uzumaki who summons snakes?!"

"I don't really see how that that information has any relevance to this discussion but yes, I am that Naruto." The Uzumaki said knowing that this would garner a lot of heat. He hadn't exactly done anything to dissuade the general consensus that he was the second coming of Orochimaru.

"You summon snakes and they are evil! Orochimaru is with them and he killed my grandpa! I bet you're going to be just like him and betray everybody!" Konohamaru viciously said in an outburst aimed directly at Naruto.

Everyone went silent. They didn't have the confidence to say anything.

"Konohamaru! You're going to have detention for two weeks for saying that. You can't just go and accuse people of being a traitor to a village." Karin sternly stated to her student who deflated at the fact that he had detention for two weeks.

Karin meanwhile was fuming at the fact that someone had the gall to even accuse her boyfriend of being a traitor. After everything that he had done for Konoha, to hear that he was going to turn out like Orochimaru was not something she was going to stand for.

"Naruto is not a traitor, will never be a traitor and is the perfect example of a loyal Konoha shinobi." Karin vehemently declared in the tone she used when she was frustrated with her class.

"I challenge you to a fight!" Konohamaru said as he regained his confidence.

Amused at the scenario in front of him, Naruto looked the kid directly in his eyes. "Tell me … boy, why would I even bother fighting you? What could I possibly get out of it?"

The academy student stuttered for a bit. Even though he hated it when other people used it, if it meant getting what he wanted, (which was revenge) then Konohamaru had no problems in using it. "Because I'm the grandson of the Sandaime Hokage and I'm going to be the Rokudaime Hokage someday!" Konohamaru boldly claimed.

The moment that Naruto heard these words, he was hit with a sense of déjà vu. The difference this time around though was that no one was laughing at his proclamation whereas when he did it, everyone laughed at him.

"You will never become the Hokage." Naruto bluntly stated to the kid who took extreme offence to this statement.

"Oh yeah and why not you arsehole!"

"That's another day to your detention." Karin quickly said before Naruto could respond.

"The reason you will never become the Hokage is simply because the position of Hokage is only given to one shinobi in a generation. They want someone who can bring stability to the village and chopping and changing Hokage's every three years will not do that. The simple fact is that there are shinobi who are better than you in your generation."

"Oh yeah and let me guess, you think you're better than me!" Konohamaru said with the upmost of confidence. He had been learning all the shortcuts to the position of Hokage which his private sensei Ebisu had talked about.

"Among other shinobi, yes. If you were really that good, you would have been promoted a year." When Naruto said this, Konohamaru remembered that Hanabi Hyuga was in the same class as him even though she was a year younger.

"Now are there any other questions?" Naruto questioned to the class.

Three kids raised their hands and Naruto picked the child who raised his first. "How would you describe yourself as a shinobi Naruto-san?" A kid in the second row questioned.

"I am the type of shinobi who tries to not have any weakness. Being good in all areas is better than being great in one and poor in another. Next question, you." Naruto replied as he then pointed to a girl in the third row on the right.

"Naruto-sensei, what would you say that your best quality as a shinobi is?" the girl asked and to most people it was the same question; not Naruto however as he decided that he would answer it in a different way.

"My best strength as a shinobi is my defence. Whilst my offence may be slightly weaker, if the shinobi is unable to kill me then it gives me much more time to get the job done."

"How did you gain the ability to summon snakes?"

There was a small smirk on the face of Naruto when he heard this. "I signed the summoning contract."

There was a look of frustration on the boy's face as a few students giggled.

"I mean how did you get the chance to sign the contract Naruto-san?" the same hopeful ninja questioned.

"The snake clan wanted someone younger to be the face of the clan after Orochimaru made them look evil." Naruto said and even before, he was debating on whether or not he would give this away.

"I don't believe you! I still reckon you're just like Orochimaru! I mean you both summoned Manda who demands sacrifices each time he is summoned."

"That's another week Konohamaru." Karin interjected. Konohamaru grumbled but ignored it. When a person who was associated with the same person who killed you grandfather, one could tend to have a bit of tunnel vision.

"Manda only does that when Orochimaru summons him. If he likes you, he will do what you ask as long as it is within reason without any form of tribute."

Next it was the girl sitting next to Konohamaru spoke up. "What nature affinity do you have Naruto-sensei?"

When he responded with wind, Konohamaru yet again interrupted the conversation, Karin gave him another day of detention. Seeing as that wasn't working properly, she also gave him some homework.

"Isn't wind supposed to be the worst element, I mean aren't the only things you can do with it are making big gusts of wind?" The girl named Moegi quickly re worded her question as she didn't want to anger the man in front of her by insulting him.

Knowing that he himself as a kid was prone to asking questions that others may think of as stupid, Naruto didn't get insulted by her question. "The only reason why people from Konoha think that it is the worst is because it is the rarest and thus hardly any shinobi see what a good Fuuton user is capable of.

Wind release is also known as the killing element because if you are good enough, you can sharpen the wind to cut through objects like a knife." Naruto lectured the girl who nodded and had a look of thankfulness on her face.

"How did you beat Neji-niisan? He is the prodigy of the clan and the best Hyuga shinobi in a generation according to my father."

Taking a good look at the girl who asked the question, Naruto recognized her as an almost identical copy of Hinata, someone who he hadn't seen since the chunin exams. This was mostly due to the fact that Neji didn't like her and think that she got everything gifted to her on a silver platter for being born first. He was a bit more accommodating to Hanabi due to the fact that he knew that there was a high possibility where she would be branded with the cursed seal.

"The Hyuga clan limit their shinobi." There was a shocked gasp which came from the girl. "You focus so much on your taijutsu and your clan based ninjutsu that you limit yourselves to learning something else. That something else could add another dimension to you as a shinobi whereas being able to do the 64 instead of the 32 won't improve you as much."

There were quite a few kids who didn't get this. They had no idea what the difference between a 32 and a 64 was apart from one being a higher number; Hanabi did though and it gave her a lot to think about.

"How come you have long hair! I mean it makes you look pretty gay, I bet you would be a better shinobi if you cut your hair." When a member of the Inuzuka clan said this, there was laughter from all of the boys and a couple of girls. The other girls in the classroom marvelled at it and were jealous that their own long hair didn't look anywhere near as good as his. Some even thought he looked cute with long hair.

"How does my hairstyle preference have anything to do with my sexual orientation?" Naruto questioned as he took a step to the side closer to Karin. To the keen eye of the Aburame and the Nara in the classroom, they noticed this movement.

Karin meanwhile was giving Naruto the subtlest death glare she could possibly provide without fully turning around and staring at Naruto. She knew exactly what he had in mind and didn't want to be a part of it.

"So what would I have to do to prove to you that I am not gay?" the long blonde haired man questioned.

The Inuzuka paused for a moment before there was a sinister grin on his face. "How about you kiss Karin-sensei fully on the lips." He thought his joke was funny and by the cheering of "do it", many of the other children in the class thought so too.

They thought that he would get embarrassed and stutter out something about how he wouldn't do it. They didn't expect for Naruto to reply with a simple "okay" and passionately lock lips with their sensei.

Even though she didn't want to do this in front of her class because it could be seen as unprofessionalism and potentially grounds to fire her, Karin melted into the kiss and returned it.

There was stunned silence in the classroom as the two shinobi made out at the front of the classroom. The silence ended when cat calls started being shouted by the Inuzuka and a couple of his friends. Imaginary hearts formed in the eyes of all girls in the room except Hanabi as they swooned at the sight in front of them. There were a few boys making sounds of reaching into their stomachs and regurgitating breakfast at the sickly scene.

When they parted, Naruto turned to the boy. "Does that prove that I am not gay?" there was a muted nod of the head from the Inuzuka who was stunned at the audacity of this Naruto fellow. It was safe to say that he had a new role model.

Looking at the time on the clock, Karin knew that she had to wrap things up. "Okay class, recess is about to start soon so there will be one more final question."

Seeing Hanabi with her hand raised first, Naruto nodded at the girl. "What's the best way to improve as a shinobi Naruto-sensei?"

_This is a fitting question to end it. I like questions like these. _"The first thing you need to do is set a goal." Naruto said whilst pausing to make sure that this point sunk in. From the looks of things, every single student, even Konohamaru was giving all of their attention to Naruto.

_They're finally seeing in Naruto what I did when I first met him. _Karin thought to herself as she watched on at the way her students marvelled at Naruto.

"The most important thing for anybody whether you are a civilian or a shinobi is to know what you want to do with your life and how to go about doing that.

As an example, say you want to be the Hokage, you can't simply go out and apply for a job as the Hokage. Instead what you have to do is set out realistic goals that help you progress to larger ones such as being the Hokage.

First you have to become a genin. That is what your teacher is for, her job is to help you become the best person you can possibly be so abuse this resource and don't be afraid to ask her questions even if you think that they are stupid.

Once you become a genin, you will need to become a chunin. Therefore, like last time you need to use all of the resources at your disposal. Talk to your Jonin-sensei, they will provide you with help in becoming stronger. If you don't get the answers that you were looking for, go back to the academy and ask your sensei there for help. Just because you are no longer apart of the class, it doesn't mean that you can't ask for help.

What I am saying is set an end target, break that down into smaller, more easily achievable ones and don't be afraid to fail. No matter what you do, there will always be a time where you fail. Failing is good though so long as you learn from your mistakes."

As Naruto finished his speech, every kid was looking at him in awe. Even Konohamaru although it would be something that he would deny was amazed at Naruto's words of wisdom.

Before they could say anything, the bell rung and like a hive mind, every student in the class went out of the room so that they could go play and have some food.

The second that they got out of hearing range, Karin turned around to scold Naruto. "Naruto, you shouldn't have done that! not only am I going to never hear the end of that but it also is setting a bad precedent for the kids.

Normally, public affection that went beyond hand holding was something that Naruto was not that fond of. This time though the calling out on his sexuality made him not mind as much.

"What, I shouldn't have done this?" Naruto said with an not so innocent grin on his face.

"No-no-no-no don't you dare Naruto-kun!" Karin screamed although not loud enough for any kids to hear. Ignoring this, Naruto sped right next to his girlfriend and locked her in an embrace as he kissed her. She responded to it although when she came back for air, she pushed on his chest. "We can't do this Naruto-kun! What if a student comes back in forgetting his lunch."

The moment that Karin finished her sentence, there was a mysterious gust of wind that closed the door to the classroom.

Placing his hands on Karin's arse, Naruto lifted her up off the ground and onto her desk. "No Naruto-kun, we can't do this." Karin mumbled as she continued to kiss the blonde.

Naruto grinned against her lips. She never said "I don't want to do this" all she was saying that they couldn't do it. That and she wasn't exactly trying to push him off.

Naruto took the lead and unlike last night, he didn't take his time. Naruto moved his hands down her silk shirt, squeezed her breasts and rested his hands on her skirt. In a bold move he moved his left hand back up to Karin's breast whilst placing the other one on her thong covered mound.

Before Karin could say anything, Naruto beat her to it. "We'll be quick and they will never find out." Naruto said and quickly silenced Karin once more. She was about to reply but when she felt Naruto slide her underwear across and slip in two fingers at a fast pace, those words died on her lips and instead were replaced with a moan.

Groping her clothed breast, Naruto squeezed it before kneading the flesh through the clothes.

Pulling down the shirt so that her bra was popping out, Naruto got a hold of the boobs and pulled them out so he could play with them. he did this by tweaking the nipple in one hand and sucking on the other with his mouth.

As this was happening Naruto's other hand wasn't idle as it was finger bashing the sugar walls of Karin. In conjunction with this, his thumb was vigorously rubbing the skin which covered the clitoris. In no time at all, his fingers were soaking.

Karin moaned in disappointment when he took the fingers out and she was too far gone to complain about the kids which would be coming into the classroom in 10 minutes time.

Reaching down to the fly of his pants, Naruto unzipped it and pulled out his penis. After rubbing the juices of Karin onto it, Naruto also spat in his hand then rubbed that into it as well.

He toyed with the entrance by rubbing it for a bit but he wanted it badly so Naruto pushed in with no resistance whatsoever.

Lifting her bum off the desk so that she was supported by her arms, Naruto gripped onto her skirt which had been hiked up and started furiously pounding into her vagina.

"Ugh, I won't be able to keep quiet for long. Naruto, it feels so good!" Karin said as she let out a rather guttural moan. It certainly didn't help in the fact that Naruto had latched onto a nipple with his teeth.

Slamming her hips at a relentless into his incoming groin did wonders for Naruto. He wasn't exactly hard when he entered but with a couple of seconds going by his 5.5 inch penis was rock hard and ramming into Karin.

All of their clothes were still on and this made the act they were doing that much more thrilling. Every other time that they had done it, they had been completely naked. It was a new experience for the couple.

Seeing the wobbling in the arms of Karin, he knew that the mood would be completely ruined if she lost control of her arms and hit her head on the edge of the table, he decided to switch positions.

Quickly the duo changed into the doggy style position and Naruto spread Karin's legs wide whilst also lifting up her skirt. To his surprise she was wearing a tight black thong.

"Wearing a G-string Karin, I thought you were against this and yet you were such sexy clothing." Naruto admonished by giving a rough squeeze to her arse.

"Oomph, I wore this so I didn't have any panty lines." Karin replied as Naruto pulled her underwear to the side and re entered her tight cavern. Using his lower abdominals, Naruto ruthlessly pounded into the pussy of Karin who was screaming; she had to bite her hand to prevent the noise from coming out.

Naruto himself was grunting as he thrusted into the red haired girl's vagina. With the natural downward curve of his penis combining with the position they were doing, Naruto was able to repeatedly rub his dick over Karin's g spot.

The friction inside the sugar walls was amazing for both parties involved and it was they were getting close to their limits. "I'm about to ugh." Naruto couldn't even finish his sentence as he let out a moan. He barely managed to keep a hold of his orgasm.

"M-m-m-e-e-e toooooo." Karin replied as her words got muddled up with each thrust from her boyfriend.

They were so far into what they were doing that they lost track of time and in a massive shock to both of them, the school bell rang. This served as the catalyst for the duo to have orgasms as they couldn't control it over their surprise.

Naruto splooged in multiple bursts along the sugar walls that were Karin's vagina. She herself was not idle as her muscles clenched as she released bodily fluids.

Realising what had just happened, Karin quickly got off of Naruto, realigned her underwear and rolled her skirt. "shit shit shit." Karin panicked as she rushed for the tissues to wipe down herself to make sure there was no leakage.

Naruto meanwhile spat in his hand and used a basic water jutsu and cleaned himself off so that he wouldn't be all sticky. Thanks to an open window, he quickly used his wind proficiency to replace all of the air in the room with fresh air from outside.

After putting the tissue in the bin beneath her desk, Karin got out the air freshener and sprayed the entire can into the room. She had an Inuzuka in her class so she was taking no chances.

"Is that everything?" Karin hurriedly questioned to Naruto who merely looked at her and laughed. Walking over to Karin, he kissed her quickly whilst he reached down to her top, put her breasts back into her bra readjusted the top so they were not on display.

"Thanks honey." Karin said in a relieved tone of voice. She had no idea what she would have done if her students had seen that her tits were out.

Walking over to the classroom door, Karin opened it and let the students into the room. None of them were any wiser as to what had happened just mere moments ago.

"Okay class, let's go back outside so you can experience a training session of what an active duty shinobi does." Karin said to which all children bar one or two cheered. For the large majority of the class, they enjoyed learning outside rather than spending heaps of time in the classroom studying.

As they left the room, Karin turned to Naruto and gave her best death glare. "I am so going to kill you when this is all over…" Karin hissed before turning around not giving the blonde any chance to respond.

"I love you too honey." Naruto said as he rubbed the back of his head with a grin on his face.


	36. Did the wind sweep you off your feet

**x-X-x**

Naruto found himself standing in the familiar training grounds of the ANBU operatives. The last time that he had been here was one year ago when he was getting initiated into the ranks of ANBU. He had been on countless missions with his team which consisted of himself, Suigetsu and Neji with their commanding officer being Tenzou.

Naruto finally had his first break from a hectic schedule in over a year where he didn't have to go on a mission the second that he was able to. Thanks to not only his efforts though, Konoha was rapidly rebuilding from the invasion at a rate which was quicker than expected.

That was the code name that she had personally given the team that had completed the most missions out of any team in all of Konoha since their formation. Their rate of completion was phenomenal and Tsunade was glad that Jiraiya's initial plan of taking Naruto out of the village for 3 years didn't take place.

Tsunade had even gone to the point where she rewarded the team for all of their hard work with a special name. Team Ember was the recognition for everything that the four ninjas had done over the past year. Only the very best teams managed to get a designated name instead of just a seven digit number.

Despite the fact that he didn't have to go on a mission, it didn't mean that Naruto didn't have something that he was required to do as per his agreement to The Konoha Defence Force

"Uzumaki-san, it is nice to meet you for the first time." An old man said as he looked over at his newest student. "From what I have seen of you during your performance in the chunin exams, you are a proficient user of the wind element am I correct?"

"Yes Danzo-sensei and it is also nice to meet you two." Naruto responded with a smile on his face.

Of course the meeting between Konoha's ANBU General and one of its most promising ninjas was not something that had gone under the nose of Tsunade. As much as both she and Jiraiya hated it, there was no one in Konoha that could better teach Naruto into becoming what his potential allowed him to become than one Danzo Shimura.

That being said though, both of the two Sannin had heavily drilled into Naruto's head just what this person was like and Naruto was under no illusions that Danzo would be trying to persuade him to at least his way of thinking, if not joining his "secret" personal army.

The positives of this meeting outweighed the negatives as far as Naruto was concerned. Ever since he had started focusing more on his studies, he knew that Danzo Shimura was a man that was not to be trifled with. There was a reason that he was a candidate for the position of Hokage all three times it was up for the taking despite spanning multiple generations. If this man was the most proficient user of the wind element in the history of Konoha, then he had to learn from him!

"That is good to hear; now I would like to learn a bit more about you before we begin training." Danzo said with an impassive look on his face.

Despite the look that Danzo was trying to put across, Naruto knew never to underestimate someone who had the potential to be an S-class ninja. Something was telling him not to trust the bandages and the cane. One must look underneath the underneath after all.

He had gotten a full report from Tsunade as to what this man was like and what he valued above all else. That happened to be loyalty to Konoha and he knew exactly where this conversation was going so he decided to nip it in the bud. "My name is Naruto Uzumaki, I like training, hanging out with my friends and spending time with my girlfriend. I dislike traitors and above all else, people with the intention to harm Konoha. My dream is to become the Hokage of Konoha."

Naruto stated to Danzo who nodded. He knew that that was about as best as what he was going to get. He wasn't naïve enough to think that Tsunade and Jiraiya hadn't already turned the jinchuuriki against him due to their own views.

What he was most concerned about was something that Naruto didn't mention anything about. It was the issue surrounding the snake summoning contract. There were so many things that he didn't know the answers to that he needed to know. Danzo supposed that after a while, Naruto would reveal this information and then he could be sure that the Kyubi jinchuuriki was not a threat to his beloved home.

"Very well then Uzumaki-san." Danzo said as he decided that that was enough with the introductions. There were more important reasons as to why they were out here. "Show me how well you can use your element."

Naruto immediately nodded and walked over to a tree. The first thing he did was rip off a branch which had a few leaves on it. Naruto immediately showcased his ability to cut a leaf with solely his chakra.

This was something that Danzo had expected. He would have refused to teach even the Yondaime's son who also happened to be the Kyubi jinchuuriki if he failed this step or even had a jagged edge on it. He wouldn't waste his time with someone who wasn't at least at an intermediate level. That was what Asuma was for.

Naruto took it up another level as he cut the branch which housed the leaves in one cut. It wasn't perfect as there were two jagged edges on the 4 inch thick branch.

"Show me you using it on the actual tree itself at its base." Danzo commented as he left no emotion whatsoever get displayed on his face.

Naruto nodded although he knew that he wasn't going to get the perfection that both he and Danzo were after. Naruto concentrated on moulding his chakra as if to make it like two stones grinding against one another. The blade that extended from his hand was tinged blue. Naruto already knew that he had to work on this if he wanted to increase his skill with futon jutsus.

There was excess chakra that he was creating and it was joining in with the wind chakra and thus making the blade jagged and more importantly weak. Naruto started slicing the blade which extended from his hand into the base of the tree.

His chakra flared multiple times and he clenched his teeth in concentration but eventually, Naruto managed to cut though the base of the tree. He wasn't all that pleased with his performance though.

"Your base chakra control is lacking let alone your control over your element." Danzo stated after having observed Naruto. Of course he knew that it was harder for Naruto to have complete control over his chakra because of the fact that he had the Kyubi sealed inside of him. He wasn't going to tell the boy that though. He could see just from how Uzumaki carried himself that he was a perfectionist.

You had to be one to get anywhere in life. It didn't even have to do with being a shinobi. You had to be willing to be the best because there was always someone else out there who was willing to do what you were not to get the position.

Naruto nodded in response although Danzo could see a little bit of ire in the blonde haired boy's eyes. Naruto was tempted to use the excuse that he hadn't been afforded any time to train over the last year but thought better of it. He didn't want to rely on using cop out answers.

"At the moment it would serve you more purpose working on your regular chakra control more so than your elemental control Uzumaki-san. There are more jutsus that this can affect and also, when you gain better control over your chakra, it makes learning your elemental chakra that much easier." Although he knew that the jinchuuriki was at a point where he had good enough chakra control to learn the techniques that he knew, Danzo wanted to test the boy.

He wanted to throw a setback in front of the boy and see how he coped with it.

"Okay then, thank you for that Danzo-sensei. What would you suggest that I do in order to improve my chakra control?" Naruto questioned with a placating smile on his face.

As he studied the boy before he answered, he was indeed reminded a lot of Orochimaru but there was more to him just that. The Uzumaki definitely didn't resemble either Tsunade or Jiraiya in terms of personality. He tried to figure out where he remembered someone acting similar to what he saw in front of him.

"Go over to the waterfall and attempt to stand on the falling water without losing any balance or position from where you placed your feet on the water. This will teach you how to deal with moving and also surfaces that don't have a constant which you can grip your chakra with." The veteran ninja lectured to Naruto who nodded.

What Naruto did next surprised Danzo. Naruto created 10 shadow clones and had them accompanying him as he walked over to the waterfall. The eye of Danzo that was visible widened when he realised what Naruto was planning on doing. Of course he knew the properties of the jutsu that his sensei the Nidaime had created but he had never thought of using the jutsu for training. Admittedly he didn't have an ocean full of chakra at his disposal but he still could have done it with one or two.

That was the thing that surprised Danzo. He knew just how many clones the boy could create given the report of his fight against the traitor teacher who had conned him into stealing the forbidden scroll. It only begged the question as to why Naruto wasn't using at minimum one hundred clones to train.

"Why are you not using all of the clones that you can create Uzumaki-san?" Danzo questioned.

Naruto turned from staring at the waterfall from its base to his newest sensei. "Jiraiya-sensei forbade me from doing it with a lot of clones. Not only are there the mental aspects which you have to be careful for, but also when my chakra reserves get low, the Kyubi tries to influence my mind and starts pumping his chakra into me. With the weakened state that I am in, it is much harder for me to block off complete contact with him."

Danzo nodded once he heard this from Naruto. "I see although there will inevitably come a time where you will have to fight the bijuu for the control over his chakra. If you want to become the Hokage of Konoha, then you make no mistake, you will have to obtain full control over the bijuu sealed inside of you. You will never be able to get into a significant position of power with the threat of the Kyubi coming out." Danzo lectured once more.

This was the first time that he had spoken in such a manner. Normally he said small, sharp sentences and left it at that. The simple fact of the matter was that Naruto was such a special case. Danzo had no illusions as to the potential that Naruto had within him.

At the forefront, Danzo was concerned with Konoha. He knew that time was getting the best of him and he did not have much time left in the grand scheme of things. That meant that he had to find someone who was suitable to lead Konoha into the future. Tsunade was nothing more than a caretaker until Konoha could find what they thought they had in the Yondaime. They needed someone who would bring prosperity to the village and that could only come through stability.

At the moment, the only two realistic people who had the strength and more importantly the reputation to fend off enemy shinobi villages were Kakashi Hatake and Asuma Sarutobi. None of them were people that Danzo wanted even in the Hokage nomination picture let alone in the actual hot seat.

Konoha needed someone from the generation after Kakashi and Asuma to be properly groomed into becoming the Hokage of Konoha. The good thing was that at that age, they would be more likely to follow his advice as a decorated veteran of the Konoha Defence Force.

Out of the generation, there was only really the Uzumaki who was capable of filling those shoes. All of the clan heirs were at best going to make jonin and nothing more as far as Danzo was concerned. The only other person who had the potential to be a world beater was Neji Hyuga but he was out of the question completely because of the subservient seal on his forehead.

That left Naruto and Danzo wasn't going to take chances like he had done in the past when the sake of Konoha's future was on the line. He needed to ensure that Konoha could live as prosperous as possible with the Uzumaki as its leader.

"Get Tenzou from whatever he is doing right now and tell him to come here." Danzo stated to thin air and then Naruto saw a movement out of the corner of his eye.

**x-X-x**

Ever since he had returned to Konoha, Naruto had sought out tattoo parlours in the hopes of landing an apprenticeship. He didn't want to become a full time tattoo artist in any stretch of the imagination but it was something that he was keenly interested in ever since he got his own due to signing the contract with the snakes.

Just like every other kid, Naruto had tried his hand at drawing and he liked to think that he was quite good at it. Whilst most of his time as a kid he was playing practical jokes on people, when he wasn't doing those or in the academy, Naruto was quite lonely sitting by himself in his apartment. To stave off the boredom, Naruto had taken up the hobby of drawing. The paper and pencil never glared at him or never said anything mean to him. It was a way for the blonde haired boy to escape from the harsh upbringing that he had to endure.

When he found out about tattooing, Naruto finally found the next step up in applying the drawings to a more permanent canvas. It made the drawings more meaningful when expressed through the medium of skin.

Of course with being an active member of the ANBU corps, it meant that he wasn't in a position where he could dedicate the time that shops would be expecting of him.

Naruto hoped that his compromise of having a shadow clone with enough chakra to last a day would be enough to convince a shop owner that he could be a productive member of their team.

Naruto assumed that he increased his chances of working by stating that he would work for free. He didn't exactly need the money being in the ANBU and you didn't make that much money being a tattoo artist unless you had a steady stream of clients.

He was not going to have that with his status as the Kyubi jinchuuriki and it was something that he was okay with. Of course, he would like to have people coming in for a tattoo from him but he was more concerned about being good at his hobby.

Naruto had to show all of the drawings he had done as a kid to shop owners so as to say that he wasn't a complete newbie. He quickly learnt this as the first person who he went to said no immediately when he had no drawings with him.

By far and large though, Naruto knew that the best thing he did when it came to showcasing that he wanted to work in this industry was by showing people the sleeve that covered his whole entire arm and parts of his pectoral and shoulder. They found the work highly skilled and were very much impressed by it.

Eventually, it was the fifth and last tattoo shop in Konoha that hired him. It was a pretty dodgy place to say the least but Naruto wasn't complaining one bit. From what he had researched of the tattoo industry, it was very hard to get a start. Once you had that start then you had to make the most of it. The blonde haired boy kind of assumed that him being the village jinchuuriki had something to do with the fact that none of the other places hired him.

The problem was that tattoo's only had somewhat popularity amongst people in the armed services. Every civilian thought that if you had a tattoo, you were junkie trailer park trash and they didn't want to know you.

As long as you could cover up tattoo's the ninja forces didn't care what you did. This was why all of the tattoo parlours that were open in Konoha had an ex shinobi in charge of them.

This one in particular was in the dodgiest part of town littered with drug users and all sorts of people teetering on the edge of breaking the law. The fact that they didn't have much money probably helped this a lot.

Naruto mind you was the complete opposite of the spectrum. The way that he carried himself was of an elite member of society. At the start when Naruto just begun working there, a few of the staff didn't like him one bit as they felt that Naruto saw himself as better than them.

Once they saw his work ethic and just how committed he was to learning the trade, they severely loosened up around the boy. The thing that they liked about Naruto the most was the fact that he made something of himself. It was common knowledge that Naruto was an orphan and came from the slums of Konoha that they worked in.

Despite his change in finances, Naruto still treated the people who didn't have the same amounts of money that he did the exact same as if they were the Hokage. It was clear them that Naruto wanted to make a good impression and the other tattoo artists thought he was doing a good job.

What they didn't know was that Naruto knew that he needed support from the community if he wished to take over as the Hokage. He couldn't just have the jonins' support as they only made up a portion of Konoha. The majority of people who live and vote in Konoha were working class and he didn't want to give off the impression that he was above them.

Four months into having his shadow clone their working daily and Naruto finally got his first chance to put an actual tattoo on someone. Up until that point he had simply been cleaning the store and occasionally putting a stencil on someone to get an idea of how to map the work.

Now though, there was a shortage as there was a flue going around Konoha and a couple of workers had called in sick.

It wasn't much but a woman came in looking like she had just finished a shift in the red light district. With the help of his boss, Naruto negotiated a cheaper price because he was new. It was a simple set of three stars on the lower left leg just above the Achilles heel. With it being a simple black and white tattoo, it meant that there was no colour involved and thus a much easier tattoo.

From that day onwards, there was a newfound confidence in Naruto that no progression as a shinobi could provide. Being recognized as good at a hobby that you enjoy doing was much better than being good at something you needed to do to stay alive and put food on the table.

Each day Naruto started doing more and more tattoos before it got to the point where half of his work was maintaining the cleanliness of the store and the other half was doing simple black and white tattoos. The proudest moment in his fledgling tattoo artist career was when he had a return customer requesting a larger, more complex piece on their back with colour.

It meant the world to him that people liked his work and were coming back for more.

The amount of success that Naruto was having as a tattoo artist was comparable to the amount of success that he was having as a business mogul alongside Suigetsu and Karin.

That sixty thousand dollar investment into the Wave Shipping Company was paying them back dividends. The first six months, the trio of investors had decided that they weren't going to take any profits made and put them into their own personal accounts. Instead they decided to reinvest the money.

When the second six month bracket came around and it was time to collect their money, they had managed to make 5k profit over the top of paying off the money they invested in the first place.

The guy who Naruto had struck a deal with in the first place wasn't complaining as he was now earning 100 thousand a year after tax and that was only set to rise.

Karin had after all placed Gato who at that time owned a billion dollar company verging on multi-billion dollar company into a genjutsu to get the man to sign absolutely everything over the trio of shinobi from Konoha.

The profits weren't anywhere near close to the point where they could even think about retiring but they knew that they would get there. Suigetsu, Naruto and Karin had eventually turned back an offer from a consortium to buy the company that they had created.

Suigetsu was admittedly for the sale of the company. He had every right to be when they offered 250 million which would get split three ways. In the end it was the red head that convinced him not to. If the consortium were going to buy it, then no doubt that they had plans to make a profit from it.

Karin thought why not make that money themselves and make even more than the 250.

When it came to situations like this, Karin liked to take control of the situation because she was the only one of the three with a degree. She had just finished her teaching degree at the University of Konoha and graduated with honours.

She was now fully qualified to be a teacher and with a year of teaching under her belt, Karin was much more qualified for her dream job than every other shinobi applying for it.

The red headed girl was set to take her first class all by herself when the new semester rolled around in two weeks' time. She and Iruka had disagreed on a few things which mainly centred on the fact that Karin was Naruto's girlfriend and Iruka was Anko's boyfriend but she definitely respected the man as a teacher. He had taught her so many things when it came to dealing with kids and getting the most out of their education.

Karin wasn't the only one progressing in her chosen field like her boyfriend. Suigetsu was extremely happy now that he had a job that expected something from him each and every day.

This was in comparison to what was happening before he met up with Jiraiya-sensei and his two friends when he was Orochimaru's genetic test material. If he had been held hostage there for any longer, he was sure that he would have gone bat shit insane by now.

Jiraiya and Naruto were right about one thing though that he loved to abuse. The stigma surrounding civilian women getting with male shinobi was indeed true and he had gotten with 23 women so far living in Konoha and yet he had only been living there for a year.

He had even taken Neji under his wing since Naruto was not at all interested in picking up chicks. Admittedly Neji was nowhere near as suave as himself when it came to the ladies but he had put away eight girls not including that one time that they double teamed a girl.

It was a moment that they had both agreed to never speak about again.

**x-X-x**

"Naruto, there is something that I want to talk to you about." Karin shyly said as she saw that he got home from training for the day.

Curious as to what it was that his girlfriend wanted to speak about, Naruto sat down next to her.

"I want a tattoo!" she blurted out before quickly putting her hand over her mouth.

"Okay, if that was all, I don't see what the big deal about it is?" Naruto stated with a confused expression on his face.

"You don't get it Naruto! I want to have a sexy tattoo just like you but I read in magazines how guys hate tattoos on women. It said that it made them look trashy."

Naruto thought about it for a moment. "Well that only depends on the tattoo. If it is not that great of a tattoo on a trashy girl in the first place, then it will make my opinion of her even worse. On the other hand if it is someone as sexy as you who is getting the tattoo and they get a good tattoo then I believe it makes them look even better." Naruto said with a reserved smile on his face.

There a look of hope on the face of Karin. Ever since she saw Naruto's one, she wanted one of her own. With her profession as a teacher, she knew that it would be even more important to be able to cover it up. "You're not just saying that to make me feel better are you? You really like girls with tattoos?" Karin questioned as she had read a whole lot of books on what supposedly what men liked in women and yet, from having been around Jiraiya and Naruto Karin now felt that the opposite was true.

Never in a million years would she have thought that getting all muscly would attract boys but apparently it did to Naruto and she loved the increase it gave her performance in the bedroom.

"Yes, I would never lie to you Karin-chan. So what do you have in mind?" Naruto questioned to his girlfriend as he switched from boyfriend mode to client mode.

"Umm, well to tell you the truth, I haven't thought that much about the design haha." Karin said with a bit of an awkward laugh. I want it to start here and go to about here." As she said this, the glasses wearing girl pointed to her obliques on the right side of her stomach and trailed down to her lower abdomen where a tiny bit of it would be covered by a bikini if she was wearing it at the time.

"I want it to be of different coloured flowers to signify the important people in my life." Naruto nodded and as Karin started saying this, Naruto already started going over in his mind what he would draw up.

"Hey, if you want we can go and do this now?" Naruto questioned. Since he was tasked with store maintenance, Naruto was deemed trustworthy enough to have a set of keys to the shop.

It was seven at night on a Sunday afternoon which meant the store was closed but since this was for Karin, Naruto had no problem whatsoever of doing this for his best friend who he also happened to be sleeping with.

The eyes of Karin widened as although she would like it done, she didn't expect it to be so soon. She couldn't back out now though as far as she was concerned and Karin nodded silently. She didn't trust herself to speak up.

Within 10 minutes, Naruto and Karin had made their way to the shop and Naruto told Karin to wait around for a bit whilst he sat at the special back lit table and drew a design.

It took fifteen minutes but once he was happy with the work, Naruto called over Karin to have a look at it. "That looks amazing! You know, I never got it how people could be so talented at drawing. I guess I just don't have an artsy bone in my body." Karin said to which Naruto didn't say anything. He definitely agreed with the sentiment of his girlfriend although he wasn't about to go telling her that.

With the design agreed upon between the couple, Naruto started preparing all of the tools and ink that he would need. As Naruto was doing this, Karin started taking off her top and pants leaving her only in her underwear. There was a small little grin on the face of Naruto when he saw his girlfriend showing off more skin than usual. Even though he had seen her naked many times beforehand, there was something about watching his girlfriend get undressed that made him smile.

With every preparation made, Naruto pushed his foot down on pedal which activated the gun and got to work.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

I don't particularly like this story because of how bad I was a writer when I first started this and I simply can't be bothered to go back and update all of the chapters. This will get sparring updates unless my muse for this story seriously kicks into overdrive.

Anyway if you are looking for good stories to read, here is a suggestion: s/4488627/1/Cougars-and-Other-Big-Cats

If you like it I suggest you check out their other work as they are very high quality and it has my favourite pairing of all time. (Jiraiya/Tsunade)


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